


Let The Demons Have Their Place

by McFearo, meanoldauthor



Series: Deserters AU [3]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Developing Relationship, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Honest Hearts DLC, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Panic Attacks, joshua graham is a war criminal and nobody lets him forget it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 64,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25735222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McFearo/pseuds/McFearo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanoldauthor/pseuds/meanoldauthor
Summary: After striking a major blow against their former superiors in the Legion, Damianus and Marius have nowhere safe to run--Save from the Mojave entirely. Signing on with a caravan northbound to Utah, the pair of them finally see a chance at living their own lives as free men, and finally figuring out who they are to one another, without the ever-present fear of Legion punishment.But what seems like escape quickly turns grim--and reminds them there may be no escape from the Legion's shadow after all...
Relationships: Male Courier/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Deserters AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531697
Comments: 25
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

“…So then, while his back was turned, I punched him, _pow pow,_ right in the back, and ruptured his appendix and his… His heart, too!”

Trudging along between the two Happy Trails brahmin, Marius muttered darkly at Ricky’s back.

“And he turns around and looks at me, and he says, ‘Wow, you really _are_ Deadeye Ricky!’ And then he died, dropped dead as a doornail! And that’s where I got my name,” he said, puffing out his chest. “Everyone calls me that now.”

“That’s nice, Rick,” the head caravan guard, Stella said, her voice dry. Walking beside the lead animal, she didn’t even look back at him. “How’s that map going?”

“It’s, uh. It’s mapping itself, babycakes, doing everything I programmed it to.” He raised his broken Pip-boy, and over his shoulder, Damianus made out the error screen it had been displaying since the start of their journey. “I’m a programming whiz, you know.”

Beside him, Marius took a deep breath, temper finally breaking. “Hey, how many people heard him call you that, Ricky?” he said, even as Damianus squeezed his hand—this wasn’t worth it, _again._ “You know, since you slaughtered those three hundred slavers barehanded already. Were you sloppy enough to leave a few alive?”

Ricky wheeled to face them, ill-fitting Vault suit patched badly at the seams, sunglasses cracked from where they’d fallen off onto the freeway. He pushed them up his sweaty nose and shaded his eyes anyway against the lowering sun as he looked back at them. “It was… They were slavers, okay, they had slaves! These really gorgeous women, and, uh… hey, let me tell you—”

Damianus had to physically hold Marius back from advancing on him, even as Jed called, “That’s enough, boys.” The old caravan master looked back from where he led the brahmin, both weariness and amusement in his eyes. “We’re setting up camp here tonight. The two of you take a look around, and Ricky, sit your butt on a rock and stay out of trouble this time.”

“Yes sir,” Damianus said, tugging a still-fuming Marius along.

“And no kissy-faces when you’re out of sight,” Jed added, loud enough for half the caravan to hear. “You two lovebirds wait until we know nobody’s going to jump us from the brush.”

The caravaners with the second group snickered, and Damianus flushed to the roots of his hair. He didn’t look at Marius’ face as they stepped off the highway and started their sweep around camp. Behind him, Marius pulled his hand free to clutch at his head, leaning back to look at the sky. “He’s so…”

“Embarrassing?” Damianus offered, when he didn’t go on.

_”Stupid,”_ Marius said, drawing the word out as he leaned forward. Damianus snorted. “And Masterson? I don’t care. If anyone has a problem with us being together, I’m happy to have a _conversation_ over it.”

The caravan had stopped at a break in the land, a smooth, once-groomed field to the south, a steep, stony hill to the north. The curve of the road gave them good vantage on any approaching travelers, but a few tilted ranch buildings still stood on the edges of the clearing. Damianus led them to the nearest, its shadow growing long in the early evening light. The door had already fallen in, and he poked his head inside as Marius circled around. “Empty,” Damianus said, with a glance. “Perfect for a little…” He spotted Marius through a far window and puckered his lips, making a smooching noise.

Marius actually flushed. “We were specifically told,” he said, and stuck his tongue out at Damianus’ grin before moving on.

He left the door, meeting up with him on the far side of the building. Marius slipped his hand in his as they headed for the next building, an old swaybacked barn. Damianus looked at him sidelong. “Do I have to worry about you and Ricky?”

“Starting a fight?” Marius said, swinging his hand a little. “No. He’s an idiot, and not worth the effort. Not that there’d be any effort,” he added, in a surly sort of mutter.

Damianus gave him an aghast look. “You’d beat him up? But I thought you had _chemistry!”_ He dodged as Marius took a playful swipe at him, walking backwards out of reach as he scowled. “It’s this great love-hate thing you have going, I—”

“You little—” Damianus snickered and turned to run as Marius charged. He only made it a few steps before Marius caught him, grabbing him around the waist and holding him tight.

Damianus leaned into him, the warmth and strength of his body all he could feel for a moment, goosebumps going up the nape of his neck as Marius snuck a kiss under the curve of his jaw. “I thought we had been specifically told?” he said, when he had control of his tongue again.

He laughed in his throat as he pulled away. “What’ll he do, scold us? He’s already said we’re the best caravan guards he’s hired all year.”

“It’s January, _Alex,”_ Damianus said, following him through the empty barn and to the tumbledown farmhouse.

A few giant rats had nested in the kitchen—less of a threat than an opportunity for dinner. Damianus left Marius to dress the largest of them, wandering into the house’s living area. A card game had been abandoned in a rush, and some time ago, with half the deck blown onto the floor. He sat at the table as he riffled through the least damaged of them—Jed played a cutthroat game, and Damianus wouldn’t turn down a few more kings to even his odds.

He found himself staring out the window across from him, the glass long-broken, but with a view of the overgrown field and the setting sun. Stacking the cards, his hands slowed, realizing his biggest concern right now was winning a handful of caps back as they sat around a campfire, everyone around them friendly—or at least no threat, he amended, thinking of Ricky—followed by a night of sound sleep, well-earned after a day of travel.

It was almost frightening, that everything now should feel so simple, so easy. A week on the road, and everything had changed. _He _had changed.__

__A touch brought him back to the moment, suppressing a start. Marius squeezed his shoulder more tightly, giving him a questioning look. “I’m fine,” Damianus said, reaching up to put his hand over his. “All set?”_ _

__He held up a couple rats, hanging by their tails. “All set. Though I think I just volunteered to cook tonight.”_ _

__“Oh, boo hoo, you have to do a little more work,” Damianus said, bumping him with his shoulder as he stood. “Tragedy and despair, we all get a delicious meal, including you.”_ _

__Marius huffed at him, mock-affronted as they headed back to the caravan. Damianus grinned as he did, his eyes wandering back to the old farm. It wouldn’t be a bad place to stay a little longer. The river ran just south of the freeway, the whole area remote, secure—and beautiful, the hills stretching in all directions, short, scrubby plants thriving despite the climate._ _

__“Dixie?”_ _

__Marius stood closer to the highway, hand outstretched. He couldn’t help but stare at him a moment, lit by the setting sun with the hillside turning to shadow behind him, the handsome planes of his face picked out in light and dark—and one corner of his mouth turning up slowly in a grin._ _

__He wiggled his fingers, beckoning him closer. “Are you gonna get your sketchbook out, or can we walk back to camp?”_ _

__He loved him. He should probably tell him so._ _

____

Damianus laughed a little as he started walking again, heart so full it cut off the words. Instead, he took his hand, squeezing it tight as they walked step for step back to the others.

***

The two of them set up to sleep on the hill above the freeway, giving them a vantage on the camp around them. Marius reached up to snug up one of the lines holding their tarp in place, just enough shelter to keep the breeze off, and kept his eyes up as he wrapped his arms around his knees. The night was almost cloudless, the Milky Way painting a bright swathe across the sky, a new moon making them shine all the brighter.

There was a rustle beside him, and he glanced down. Dixie was curled up tight in his bedroll, a corner of his blanket wadded up and tucked against his chest. Marius suppressed a grin—then let it widen, without anyone here to witness. He’d always slept like that, he realized; even if Marius had tried not to notice, had looked away when he woke and Dixie still slept, knowing that vulnerability wasn’t something he would have shared, were he awake.

But now, they had grown…closer, softer, even if the proximity of the other caravaners kept them from much more than chaste touch and stolen kisses. He rested his cheek on his knees and just watched him sleep, fighting the urge to stroke at his hair, grown out a little from their time on the road. He turned back to the stars when it became too much, counting and naming them.

They had time, now. They were free men, with all the time in the world to navigate what it meant to love one another, even if the word was still too much to say out loud. But there was a future ahead of them where that could happen, without fear, without looking over their shoulders for the Legion.

His eyes dropped again, sweeping the landscape around them. The only movement was a pair of coyotes in the field south of the highway, ears pricked and facing the camp, as the wind carried their scent. No threat.

That was his only duty now, watching for coyotes. It was absurd, how simple, how easy this life was.

Another rustle beside him, as Dixie curled up tighter, and his blanket slipped off his shoulder. Even in the desert, the air had a nip to it at night, and Marius saw him shiver. Carefully, Marius slid his own blanket out from under him and laid it over Dixie, unable to resist placing a feather-light kiss on his temple.

He smiled in his sleep, eyes almost opening, only to settle back with a sigh. Marius studied his face a moment longer before turning back to the stars, knowing sleep would be long in coming, full of excitement for what their future held.

***

The highway turned up into the hills, and was eventually abandoned altogether for trails snaking up the sides of mesas and through slot canyons. Marius didn’t complain, the vistas around them breathtaking, even as they had to unload the pack brahmin and carry cargo themselves, crates scraping on the sides of the passes, the animals lowing ahead of them as they tried to find footing on steep inclines.

It felt good, to do honest work, for the caravaners to clap each other on the back and congratulate themselves as they set up camp in the evenings, tired and satisfied with their progress. He and Dixie fell into an easy routine with them, scouting for threats before returning to either cook or offer what they’d foraged, sharing stories around the fire. Dixie played Caravan with Jed and the guards, not so much gambling as trading caps back and forth every night to the sound of friendly banter, or pulling out his sketchbook to draw anyone willing to sit still.

Sitting beside the fire, Marius watched him laugh as he chatted with Stella, the guard with her face turned to the firelight and Dixie squinting over his glasses at her.

Maybe they could stay with the Happy Trails company, after this. Anywhere that let him be so relaxed.

The trail led them to deep valleys, the red and ochre stripes of stone growing bolder, brighter. After a particularly narrow passage, Jed called a halt, letting the caravan catch its breath. He walked up the line, making sure all of them were alright, stopping with his hands on his hips a little ways up the trail. “All right, people. Been a long couple weeks, but here we are.” He indicated the valley behind him. “Zion!”

To Marius, it didn’t look much different than the rest of the canyons they’d walked, with a narrow path on the wall they’d entered on, and a sheer drop to the right. The canyon faded into the blue distance, mesas looming up all around, the red rocks carved into smooth curves by wind and water. Sitting beside him with his back to the wall, Dixie nudged him on the arm, pointing to a cluster of rock spires, almost delicate despite standing tens of feet high.

Leaning on a boulder, Stella muttered something to Jed, who waved her off. “The New Canaanites will know a path back. And if they don't, we got the maps on our friend's Pip-Boy over there.”

He did not, Marius noticed, point to Ricky.

“Enough lollygagging!” Jed called, clapping his hands together. The other caravaners sighed, and the brahmin lowed as their leads were taken up. “Get moving and keep an eye out for tribals!”

“Come on, lazy.” Dixie was quicker to his feet, holding out his hands to pull Marius up. “Honestly, two weeks of walking and you’re tired already today? The caravan life is _not_ for you.”

“Excuse you, I’m pacing myself for the rest of the day,” he said, giving him a peck on the cheek. “I’ll have to bully Ricky into carrying you, if you burn out now.”

“Who are you talking about? Are you talking about me?” Marius sighed as Ricky approached, visibly dragging his feet. “Because I could leave this caravan in the dust if I wanted to! But I’m an honorable man and need to map our way back home, and I can’t abandon you losers. It goes against a…an oath I swore. Yeah.”

Marius took a deep breath, biting back the urge to punt him off the nearest ledge. “Was it an oath about being the most useless—”

Jed hissed at the head of the line, stopping dead. The caravan slowed to a halt behind him. “Hold on, now...” Jed whispered, gesturing the guards forward. “Could swear I heard something up ahead.”

Marius reached for his rifle as he moved up, the cliffside path suddenly narrow, a trap. He looked up to a higher ledge, but was too slow, a figure in crude armor getting off a shot before Marius could get a bead on him. One of the other guards cried out, briefly, and the rest of the caravan was shouting panic, trying to take cover behind boulders on the path.

It didn’t matter, with their attackers above them. Marius picked off one almost directly over his head; another, keeping Stella pinned closer to the cliff. He reached for another magazine for his carbine, and heard Dixie shout behind him, “More here! They surrounded us!”

Marius didn’t have time to look, trusting that Dixie could keep them off his back. He saw Ricky panic, breaking cover and trying to flee—Marius couldn’t watch him fall, aiming for his attacker as he aimed back, and for a second, everything was too slow. The tribal on the cliff bared his teeth, resettling his grip on a heavy submachine gun.

A flash from a laser rifle brought him down, the heat of the beam putting a crater in his chest. Stella was screaming abuse as she fired, two more tribals returning fire at her.

Marius had time to sight on one. He didn’t miss. Neither did the second gunner.

Jed shouted behind him. Marius’ hands were shaking, throwing the next shot wide, and he tried to grab at Jed as he rushed to Stella’s side. Too slow, too little, too _late_ —

Only one shooter was left ahead, and Marius pressed back to the rocks, fumbling at another magazine. Looking back the way they had come, Dixie was closing in on a tribal with a bladed gauntlet as he turned to flee, already bleeding from a slash across his chest. No other caravaners were left standing.

He let out a long breath, trying to steady himself as he rounded his cover again. The last tribal was dropping down the cliff to approach the caravan, and looked up too late as he hit level ground.

Marius’ ears were still ringing as he leaned on the boulder, trying to breathe. His chest was tight, and he couldn’t get enough air, legs going out from under him as he tried not to be sick. There were hands on him, and Marius flinched, but Dixie was still feeling at him—checking for injuries, he realized, and feebly pushed him away. “I’m fine,” he said, the words coming out as a sort of sob. “Fine. I’m fine. The others—”

With the sound of his heartbeat fading in his ears, he could hear nothing but the frightened calling of the brahmin, stampeded back the way they had come. Dixie put his arms around him, and Marius buried his face in his middle, teeth clenched as he tried to keep hold of himself. He held him so tightly he could feel Dixie’s breath hitch, and Marius fought not to do the same. He pushed up to his feet instead, letting Dixie help him, and managed to whisper, “Are you alright?”

“Not badly,” Dixie said, still holding his arms. “We should—”

“Where are you hurt?” Marius straightened, feeling at him. His side was damp—not with sweat, as Marius had assumed, but from a raking blow, the blood hidden on the black tank top he wore. “Here, let me get something on that—”

“It’s a scratch. We should find somewhere safe, first,” Dixie said, catching his hand. “They might be looking for survivors.”

“Right.” He looked back at the brahmin, who had quieted, but still stood with their eyes rolling suspiciously. They would be a distraction to anyone pursuing, if nothing else, and Marius turned away to see Dixie straighten from checking some of the bodies, pack in hand. He beckoned, and Marius followed as Dixie led them onward. He kept his eyes on his back, not looking at the bodies around them, but noting the stillness. He almost reached out to stop him, even as he felt his hands tremble—but if they weren’t healthy enough to speak, to sit up and call for them, then…

Then they were too far gone to be helped.

He repeated it in his head like a mantra as they crossed the bridge, as much to ignore the height as to keep his composure. It swayed gently in the breeze, but felt mercifully sturdy as he gripped the rope. Partway across, Dixie hesitated, and Marius reached to hold his shoulder. He lurched against the rope, getting it in a death grip as he fell to his knees. “Dixie—what is it, the height? I—”

“I feel sick,” he whispered, gone pale. Trying to push up to his feet, his eyes widened. “Gun! One m—”

Marius shot upright, the whole bridge swaying as he brought his rifle to bear, cold spiking through his guts. Too slow, too slow again, and Dixie was—

Another figure came up behind the tribal, a club cracking down on his head. He tumbled down the rocks, and the second man waved, open-handed. “Hoi!”

Dixie looked back at Marius, still kneeling with a hand to his side. “Hi?” he called back, unable to keep the question out of his voice.

One of the brahmin mooed back, and the newcomer pointed. “Are those your…” He spun his finger in the air for a second, as if trying to remember the word. “Vinder? And that’s… oh…”

The two of them shared another look. “He’s sick,” Marius called, getting Dixie’s arm over his shoulder. “Those people, do they poison their weapons?”

“Yah! White Legs are nasty!” the man shouted as he clambered down the stones to meet them.

He dug in a pouch at his side as Marius helped Dixie sit, handing him a clay bottle. “Drink it all. Antidote, for the datura venom,” he said, crouching next to him. He tipped his hat up, adorned with feathers and a drape to keep the sun off his neck. “You might see some funny lights, but you didn’t get a big dose, or you’d be down by now.” For a second, Marius thought he was older than his voice implied, his face deeply lined—but as he looked closer, he saw he was just heavily tattooed, and probably younger than he and Dixie. His clothes were little more than a short kilt and sash, with a thick-furred pelt slung over a shoulder as a concession to the season.

“Thank you,” Dixie said, still looking pale as he tipped his head back on the rock.

“Wish I got here sooner, I might have warned you,” he said, subdued. “You’re some kind of lucky, White Legs don’t often leave survivors.”

Marius shook his head, slinging his gun more securely. “They tried not to,” he said. “Who are you?”

“I'm called Follows-Chalk. Joshua sent me to scout for any outsiders coming up from the Southern Passage,” he said, brightening, only for another thought to strike. “Right! I should get you to him right away, it’s not good to keep him waiting. We can stay on this path a while—nice view of the river, neh?”

“We’re too far south for White Legs,” Marius said, a mental step behind and half to himself. “Out of their territory.”

“Tell that to the New Canaan folk,” Chalk said. “Here, how do you feel? Good to walk yet?”

Dixie took a deep breath, flexing his hands. “I think so,” he said, and Marius helped him stand, pulling his arm around him again. “But we need to move, if more of them come back.”

“Goot sists. I know places you can rest, if you need,” Chalk said over his shoulder, leading them down the canyon. “Mean bunch, those White Legs. They’ve been raiding deeper and deeper here, since they sacked the city.” He pointed to a fork in the path ahead. “There’s a path north of here, if you want, or head east over the ridge. There’s a nice view from the top of the cliff…”

“This Joshua, is he in charge here?” Dixie asked, leaning on Marius.

“He leads our tribe! Thanks to him, the Dead Horses are strong, and safe from our enemies,” he said, with no little pride, as he jogged up towards the cliff. “He's been the chief of our tribe since he came back to the valley. He went off to the civilized world years ago, to fight a war. That didn't go well.”

Marius stared at the rock face, and the white chalk markings all across it, in geometric shapes like the tattoos on their guide’s exposed skin. He looked over sharply at Dixie’s tone, as he said, “Wait. What war?”

“With the Enseyaar, the Sunset People,” Chalk said with a shrug. “Something about fighting over a dam, which seems mighty small to go to war over. Especially since it went so bad for Joshua. You can try and ask him more, but he doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Follows-Chalk continued on for several steps uphill before realizing the two of them had stopped. He frowned as he turned, tugging the pelt higher on his shoulders. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Marius said slowly, into the silence, staring at Dixie and the cold, grim look on his face.

“Good?” Chalk shifted his weight, glancing ahead, to what looked like another cliff. “Because I’m really not looking forward to talking to him, if you don’t come with me.”

“I’ll bet not,” Dixie said, grim. “Take us to Joshua Graham.”

Chalk gave them one more worried look before turning ahead. His voice was even quieter as he said, “I never told you his whole name. Are you Sunset People?”

The two of them shared another look, and Marius shook his head, trying to think of where to start.

***

”Couriers,” Follows-Chalk said, rolling the word around in his mouth. “Message-bearers. So do you have messages for Zion?”

Damianus didn’t listen as Marius answered, recovered enough to walk on his own. Their trip through Zion should have been a slow, awestruck thing, he thought. The place was majestic, arches and towers of stone above them, the great cliffs nearly closing over their heads as Follows-Chalk led them down to the river. The waters of the Eastern Virgin were crystal clear, and he couldn’t help but watch fish flit away from them as they splashed along.

But all he could think, as the chill water soaked through his boots, was _the Burned Man lives._

It should have made him furious, as much as Zion should have him entranced with its beauty, as much as he should be mourning the caravan the White Legs had destroyed—friends they had made. But the numbness in his chest muffled all of it, turning the walk into a flat, dutiful march, avoiding the traps that Chalk pointed out in the water.

Damianus heard the chatter of a camp somewhere ahead, voices bouncing off the canyon walls. He looked over for Marius, slogging beside him, and saw the blank, uneasy look that Damianus must be wearing as well. But he took his hand when Damianus reached out, giving it a squeeze. “We never got your side fixed up,” he said.

“It’s really just a scratch, with the poison treated,” Damianus insisted, not reaching for it. “Don’t worry about it.”

Marius frowned, but nodded. “If it’s more than a scratch, I’m going to be very short with you,” he said, forcing a teasing sternness. “Imagine if it gets infected.”

“You’ll never be as short with me as I am with you,” he said, nudging his shoulder with his head.

“What does that even mean?” Marius said, nudging back. Damianus shrugged, looking forward. He realized Chalk had been watching them, and he sheepishly focused on their path again.

“We’re nearly there,” he said, leading them through one last, narrow pass. He waved a hand to their right, where the river widened into a pool. “Va-la! This is where my tribe, the Dead Horses, are camping. Joshua Graham is just beyond them in the Angel Cave, come on.”

Damianus straightened up, tugging the straps on his pack into place, straightening his machete. He patted his pockets for his knives, the couple on his belt—and stopped.

Was he going to try and impress him? To look like the Legionary he’d been under the Burned Man’s command, to look like something he’d respect? Or was he trying to prove he was something else now, and too competent to threaten?

What would he even say, to a mass murderer who had helped ruin his life?

The Dead Horses watched them pass, murmuring in their own language. The camp on the bank was familiar—and not. Damianus had seen most tribal camps after they’d been torn apart, raided and burned by the Legion. By his hand.

He shook his head, trying to steel himself against the thought. Now wasn’t the time for his mind to wander. Marius caught the gesture, and pressed a hand to his shoulder briefly, stepping into the shadow of the cave. Torches had been set up all through it, and more tribals sat around a fire, turning to watch as one pointed to them. Another, a woman with a heavy pistol on her hip, stood and gestured to Chalk. “Si ar, dis?”

He responded in the same language, gesturing to the two of them—and drawing a ledge in the air, a bridge. Describing their meeting, Damianus realized. He heard their names—Dixie Greene and Alex Rojas, they had silently agreed—and that of Happy Trails. After a few murmurs, another of the Dead Horses slipped away, further up the cave. The woman listened to Chalk a moment longer before focusing on them, arms folded. “Owslander zookah Joshua Graham?”

Damianus narrowed his eyes, trying to parse it. Before he could, Marius said, “We’re not looking for him.” He set his jaw hard. “But we’ll speak to him, if he asks nicely.”

She snorted, and looked at Damianus. “You show more respect, owslander. Joshua is greatest warrior,” she said, slow and a little stilted, but clear. “You friend show him no respect, he show you thunder and fire.”

“Yeah, I’d hate that,” Marius muttered as Chalk led them ahead. Damianus elbowed him, frowning, and Marius ducked his head—but didn’t look very penitent.

_“Don’t_ make him angry, though,” Follows-Chalk hissed as they headed up a steeply sloped tunnel. “I just met you, don’t want to see you turned into dead sentries.”

_Heads on pikes,_ he meant, as Damianus recalled the walk here. The numb feeling in his chest hardened into something like fury. He’d kill the Burned Man himself, if it meant keeping Marius safe.

And thinking of the years of pain he’d spent in the Legion… He might well do it for his own sake.

The tunnel led to another chamber with an uneven floor, a large step in the stone forming what was nearly a stage. On it, a man sat at a table, giving them what might have been a measuring look—but through the bandages wrapped over his face, it was hard to tell. The tribesman who had gone ahead gave them a meaningful look as he stepped down from the rocks, whispering something to Chalk as he passed. He looked anxiously back at the two of them before following him out.

“We should have given you a better welcome on your first visit to Zion, but from what I hear, the White Legs beat us to it.” Damianus’ eyes hadn’t left the man at the table, the armored old-world vest and heavy bandages, and the low rasp of his voice made his hair stand on end. He had seen the Legate—the Burned Man—in person less than a handful of times, but that voice…

When neither he nor Marius spoke up, Graham turned back to his task, picking up a pistol from the table. Both of them tensed, hands on weapons, and Damianus caught the flicker of the Burned Man’s eye, noting the motion. “The White Legs seem to be the only visitors we have these days. I wouldn’t have expected anyone from the south to come looking for us.” Rather than level the gun at them, he locked the slide open, ejected the clip, and inspected the whole of it before reassembling it and setting it aside. He picked up another in the continuing silence. “And you’re couriers, no less. Not who I was expecting, but I suppose he wouldn’t have come with a caravan.”

From the corner of his eye, Damianus saw Marius draw back, eyes narrowing.

“I don’t know if you were close to the other members of your group, but you have my sympathy. I pray for the safety of all good people who come to Zion…” Graham said, still working through the pile of guns on the table with the steady, mechanical grace of long practice. His voice lowered as he went on, “But for those who come with ill intent, sometimes we must be God’s instruments.”

Damianus stood frozen, the tension in the cavern a physical force. All he could do was look in in disbelief at the Burned Man, who lingered a moment longer over one of the pistols before setting it away from the others.

“Caesar’s dead. No one sent us.” Damianus looked over as Marius licked his lips, probably as dry with fear as his. “And if you threaten us again, you’ll join him.”

Damianus’ heart stopped. Marius, being Marius, had balls—and not an _ounce_ of good sense.

Graham hesitated, his hand resting on one of the last of the guns. “I find that hard to believe,” he said, slowly. “And understand me now: You are not the first to have tried. Even if Caesar is dead, I doubt you will be the last. Because you will _not_ be the ones who succeed.”

“We killed him ourselves. He is gone,” Damianus cut in, trying to shift the topic away, even by a fraction. “And all we want is to get out of here.” _This cave, right_ now—

“So you came here with this caravan…by chance?” He picked up the pistol, starting his routine again—but with one eye on the two of them, now. “Happy Trails were known to New Canaan, good friends, reliable traders. And they have died in your wake. Caesar had already moved the White Legs to destroy my family; you will have to work harder to disprove my suspicion.”

Marius bared his teeth. “We’re not running your fucking—”

Damianus threw out his arm, barring his path as he stepped forward, cut in his side stinging at the motion. Marius stared down at him, seething, and Damianus gave a little shake of his head. Down the tunnel, he made out several Dead Horses leaning to look—and a couple held the same sort of pistol that the Burned Man wore. Outnumbered. He looked back at the Legate. “All we want is to be gone,” he said, speaking clearly, painfully aware of the lisp in his words as Graham watched him, taking the familiar glance at the scar on his cheek. “What do you want from us? What do we have to prove?”

“The paths that brought you here are impassable, returning south. Even if you sought to leave Zion, you could not. You would die in the wilderness.” Marius snorted. Graham ignored it. “Daniel, another of New Canaan’s missionaries, has mapped the area extensively. But he cannot help you now, not with the constant threat of the White Legs.” He must have seen something on their faces, because his hands stilled as he looked at them. “I'm not telling you this as a trick. Whether you want to help us or not, you can't get back without Daniel's assistance.”

Damianus stared back at him, unable to meet his eyes, the bandages over his face hiding any expression. At last, Damianus nodded. “We’ll take out the White Legs for you,” he said. Still leaning into his arm, he felt Marius start. “If that’s what it takes. Where are—”

“We’re not killing anyone!” Marius snapped. He turned to the Burned Man, shaking off Damianus’ hand. “We’re not doing a _single damn thing_ for you, _Legate!_ Least of all putting the blade to _one more tribe_ on your orders. You can fucking burn all over again, there’s nothing stopping us from shaking these maps out of Daniel ourselves.”

Graham stared back, not even leaning away from the tirade. His voice was almost mild as he said, “Perhaps. But consider, just because Daniel is a missionary does not mean he is incapable of, or unwilling to, defend himself. In addition, if you harm Daniel or any of the Sorrows or Dead Horses, I will find you.” His voice dipped lower, clear threat. “Make no mistake. God willing, you will not leave this valley.”

He sat back, one hand on the table, for all the world a reasonable man with an unreasonable stranger on his doorstep. “And you may not understand this, given…what you may have endured, though I invite you to think on it: waging war against good people is bad for the soul.”

Whatever else he had to say was lost under Marius’ shout of, _”Hypocrite!”_ Damianus grabbed his arm to keep him from advancing, trying to pull him away, but he refused to move. “Was it bad for _your_ fucking soul when I saw my mother crucified? Did that hurt _you_ when the Legion slaughtered my tribe? We had to _endure_ because of _your—”_

_”Stop,”_ Damianus hissed, hauling harder on his arm. Trying to shake him off, Marius’ hand caught him in the side, and he couldn’t fight a flinch, gritting his teeth as the cut on his side reopened.

Marius stopped fighting abruptly, eyes wide. In the silence of the cavern, Damianus shot one more look at the Burned Man before drawing him away, the crowd of uncertain Dead Horses only parting at a word from him. Chalk was in the crowd, and he tagged along as they stormed toward the entrance. “What did you do? You can’t talk to _Joshua Graham_ like—”

“We did, and I’ve got more to—”

“Enough. Please, not here,” Damianus said, moving to block his path again. He looked to Chalk. “We aren’t staying here, and we aren’t doing anything for him. We’re going.”

They brushed past, even as Chalk held out his hands halfheartedly. “You can’t just…”

They didn’t pause to hear the rest.

***

There was another cave entrance not far from the Dead Horses camp. The stones around the entrance were coated in smeared white hand prints—not the carefully placed onces Chalk had pointed out, on the walk from the ambush, but panicked, rushed. Dixie insisted they wouldn’t be followed.

Marius was willing to trust him, if only so he could stop, leaning on the cold stone, just out of sight of the river. “I cannot fucking _believe_ this,” he said, pressing his hands to his face. “We get this far running from the Legion, and here it is _waiting_ for us. Oh, I knew he wasn’t dead. There was no way.” He pushed off the wall to start pacing, waving his hands. “After all he’d survived? All of Caesar’s rumored kill orders? I knew he crawled out of that pit somehow.”

Dixie had stopped a little further on, resting with one hand on the wall. He had turned up the light on his Pip-boy, throwing the stony expression in his face into stark relief.

“And how dare he. How _dare_ he survive, just to try and order us to do his dirty work again.” Marius could only make it a few strides in the narrow tunnel, and he whirled to keep moving, anger making his heart race and standing still an impossibility. “You’d think getting lit on fucking _fire_ and thrown off the biggest cliff in the southwest would teach his a fucking _lesson,_ ” he spat, swiping at the air, “but he’s still bent on playing Legate, isn’t he? Ordering tribes to die on his command, _butchering_ them…”

He stopped, digging his fingers into his hair, breath hissing between his teeth as he tried to find the words, _some_ way to let out the swell of anger in his chest that choked him. But the silence of the cave made him pause.

Dixie has sat with his back to the wall, hands folded on his good knee. His face was set into a blank, emotionless stare—the one that he put on like a mask, made him invisible, let him pull away without drawing attention. He wasn’t quite looking at Marius, but his gaze fixed more firmly on the far wall as he looked at him, heart sinking.

Marius wiped his hand down his face before going to sit beside him, not so close as to crowd. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, as if being quiet now could make up for his shouting. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t…ready for any of this today, I don’t… I’m not mad at you.” He laid his hand on the floor between them—but like it had just fallen there, an opportunity rather than a request. “I’m not mad.”

Silence. Marius made himself breathe deeply, letting it out through pursed lips, trying to slow his heart. Trying to exhale the tight feeling in his chest. Anything. He realized he was shaking again, but before he could close his fists on it, Dixie laid his hand over his—lightly, just his fingers over Marius’, and he gently curled his own over them, letting him pull away of he needed.

“You seem mad,” Dixie said, quietly.

Another deep breath. “I am. But not at you,” he said, looking over. Dixie watched him sidelong, with exhaustion in his eyes instead of that cold distance. “Are you alright?”

He looked away. Marius rolled up onto his knees so he could reach out, pulling him tight, kissing the top of his head as they held each other. The pain of the day came creeping back, and he didn’t let go until Dixie tapped him on the back and said softly, “Ow.”

“Your side,” Marius said, letting go immediately. He reached to pull his pack off. “I’ve got some stimpaks left, but we—”

“Might need them for worse injuries,” Dixie said, shifting to stand. “Come on. Let’s make sure there’s nothing hiding back here.”

There was nothing living, at least—though their first clue that someone once _had_ was a skeleton near the entrance of a larger chamber, a loose tripwire laying on the cave floor. Trading a look, Marius dug a flashlight out of his backpack, not trusting the ghostly light of fungus clinging to the walls. The two of them picked through the winding cave, disabling mines and rigged shotguns as they went, finally circling back to what had, once upon a time, been a well-stocked camp.

There was an improvised pallet by the long-dead cook fire, the bundles of grass under the sheet turned to little more than dust with time. Dixie laid his bedroll over it, laying on his side as Marius pushed his shirt up, wetting a rag to wipe away the smeared blood and get a closer look at the cut. He worked gently, and watched Dixie resettle his head, looking at the computer terminal that had been set on top of a crate. “Do you think that works?”

“I’ll find out in a bit, but the odds are good,” Marius said. The cut really was just a flesh wound, but long, and he didn’t fully trust healing powder to help it. He dug a stimpak out of his bag. “Whoever used to live here didn’t do anything halfway, there’s a whole workbench down there. I can probably get it running.”

He turned back to Dixie, the syringe in one hand. He realized he’d left the other resting on his side, absently rubbing his thumb against the smoothness of his skin, a little comforting gesture. Worried it might be unwelcome, he glanced at him—but facing away, Dixie’s eyes were half-shut, head pillowed on his arm.

“This’ll sting,” Marius said, mouth dry. He used the rag to hold the edges of the cut together, injecting small doses of the stimpak along the length of it. Keeping pressure on it as the medicine started its work, he couldn’t tell if the tremor in his hands was the stress of the day, or realizing he and Dixie were alone—truly alone—for the first time in weeks. A sort of yearning rose up in him, to just lay down with him, to hold him tight against the chill of the cave, to kiss the back of his neck, and…

Just be close. And if anything came of it…

Marius smoothed his shirt back down, a scab closing over the wound unnaturally fast from the stim. But he kept his hand at his waist, just over his belt, a small point of warmth in the cold.

“I thought we might stay with Happy Trails a while,” Dixie said dully, into the quiet that followed. “You seemed so happy.”

The time wasn’t right, not now.

Instead, Marius reached up to stroke at his hair, shutting his eyes on the first of the tears.

***

”Ta-da,” Damianus said, pulling a second Pip-boy out of his pack. “I picked it up from…” _Ricky’s corpse_ felt like a morbid way to phrase it, less than a day after the entire caravan was massacred, the wound too raw. He tossed it from hand-to-hand a moment, before handing it to Marius. “It’s still broken, but I figured you would know how to fix it.”

“Ohhh, you got me garbage,” Marius said, to all appearances sincere, leaning back on his pack like a pillow. He took it willingly, looking it over and seeing how it fit on his arm. “Thank you,” he said, turning the underside to the fire. “I don’t have small enough screwdrivers to get it open and have a look, but I can scrounge some up.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Damianus said, resting his chin in his hand as he sat on his own bedroll. They had found space to breathe in the camp in the cave, taking advantage of the stores that had been laid as they figured out their next move. His own Pip-boy had, indeed, the maps from here to the Mojave—or at least, out of Zion. Neither had suggested where they might go after escaping the canyon.

Likely because neither of them had any idea where there was to escape _to,_ anymore.

Marius was still looking at the device, tilting the screen as it caught the light. “He was an idiot,” he said abruptly. “But he didn’t deserve to die like that. Scared.”

“Hey,” Damianus scooted closer, reaching to comb a piece of hair out of his face.

He raked at it, untied as they lay around. “What if I had taken the shot at the other one? I could have at least saved—”

“Marius.” Damianus rested his hand on his head a moment, hesitant, then slid the pack out from under him. Marius raised his eyebrows, and Damianus slid closer despite the butterflies in his stomach, letting him rest his head in his lap. Looking up at him, a blush crept across Marius’ face, and Damianus fought the urge to shove him away with some disparaging comment about making it weird.

It _was_ strange, the sort of weird that they’d been easing into, slowly; that made his heart feel soft and his knees go weak. It only felt strange because he had been told so long it was wrong.

“You can’t blame yourself for this,” he said, running his fingers through Marius’ hair, unreasonably pleased at seeing him close his eyes and sigh at the touch. Unfortunately, it worked itself into a snarl, and he started carefully picking through it. “Neither of us could have known what was going to happen. You just…” He trailed off, making a face at his hair. He knew Marius had a comb somewhere in his pack, and he pulled it closer again, only to glance down for permission to dig through. Marius seemed to know what he needed, and pulled it from an outer pocket, passing it up with his eyes still half-closed.

“Sometimes you just lose people, for stupid, pointless reasons,” he said, teasing at the tangle. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

It was a long moment before Marius nodded, eyes nearly shut. It was longer still before Damianus felt him relax more heavily against him. “Harder when you know the person responsible is right outside.”

Damianus paused, smoothing at the length of his hair. “You’re not suggesting we go beat the Burned Man to a pulp.”

His eyes didn’t open. “It’s crossed my mind.”

He snorted, starting the comb at his scalp. He and Erasmus would have gotten on like a house on fire. Maybe literally.

Time didn’t mean much, so deep underground, but it was late in the night by the clock on Damianus’ Pip-boy when Marius waved him over to the terminal. “That new fusion battery worked,” he said, as Damianus abandoned sharpening a knife and settled beside him. “Looks like some diary entries? Dated from... 2277.”

Damianus rested his cheek on his shoulder, squinting at the number. “Isn’t that…”

“The year the bombs fell,” Marius said, quietly. A keystroke brought up a block of text, and he cleared his throat. “’October 28th: Five days on foot, still can't sleep. Outside it's like nothing happened. Sky looks wrong, that's all. Hike back to overturned NatGuard truck near Toquerville? After blisters heal, maybe’…”

There were gaps in the entries, each shorter and bleaker than the last. Damianus imagined the writer sitting where Marius was, alone, defeated, and grieving… Being apart from a family as it was lost, and trapped here with nothing but regrets, as the world seemed to die around him. As he wished he could find the strength to end his own misery.

Marius’ voice was choked as he worked his way through the diary. “’January 30th: There is nothing left alive out there.’” He paused, and Damianus looked up at him, worried he was too overcome to continue. But instead, he tapped the enter key and shook his head, as the display went back to a menu. “That’s all,” he half-whispered, and cleared his throat. “It doesn’t say if he left, or…”

Damianus wiped his face with the back of his hand, looking at the cavern. Even if the camp had been established by another group, it was well-stocked, defended; whoever had taken the time to record his thoughts here hadn’t been willing to lay down and die. Had refused to, even as the guilt welled up in him and showed him an easy way out. “The battery was dead,” he said, feeling like he was grasping at straws. “Could it have died before he wrote more?”

“Maybe,” he said, resting his head against Damianus’. He didn’t sound very hopeful. “These were written over two hundred years ago, it’s not like we can ask.”

“Maybe he’s a ghoul now,” Damianus said, shrugging. “He was running around in glowing snow.”

“Optimist,” Marius said, with a kind of weary affection, and put a kiss on his forehead.

Not a word that anyone had ever used, regarding Damianus. He turned it over in his head, as they got ready to sleep. Maybe he’d like it to be.

Marius gave him a quick, uncertain look as he settled on his bedding. Damianus felt himself flush, hiding it as he lay down, turning his back to him—there was nothing stopping them now, with privacy at last to do…whatever they wanted.

And he did _want,_ even as the thought made his mouth go dry.

He waited for…something, as he lay there, some retribution for the thought, or for Marius to come over, to say something. But instead, he heard him sigh a little, breath puffing out between his lips in that gormless, dead-to-the-world way that made Damianus smile.

But it faded as he lay there, as he found himself staring at the green glow of the terminal, wishing he could talk to the man and ask him how he had kept going, after he had lost everything.


	2. Chapter 2

_”Hoi!_ You two! Couriers!”

Scraping the last few bites of food out of the cook pot, Marius looked at Dixie across the fire, redoing his handwraps. Follows-Chalk’s voice echoed down the tunnel again. “I know you’re in there! There’s no tracks anywhere else, so you must have come in here, through the river.”

He licked the spoon clean before dropping it in the pot. Dixie was already standing, and Marius followed him to the cave entrance, stopping where the river lapped at the cave floor. Chalk stood just inside the entrance, silhouetted by the morning sun on the water. As his eyes adjusted, Marius noted the concern on his face. “Was kind of worried you got eaten by an angry ghost,” he said, just barely nervous. “Not that they exist. But they say people go into those caves, and don’t come out.”

Dixie started, “Probably because they’re full of traps, not—” at the same time that Marius blurted, _”Ghosts?”_

They both stared at him, and he folded his arms. “They exist,” he said, defensive. “And nobody said anything about…”

“Uh huh,” Dixie said slowly, with a look in his eye that let Marius know he would be hearing about it later. “What did you want, Chalk?”

“Your help,” he said, face falling.

“Graham sent you,” Marius said, ready to turn away, but Chalk held up his hands.

“Well, yes,” he said, and stepped into the cave as Marius scoffed. “But wait, listen, listen. The Dead Horses are here because of Joshua, and Joshua is here because of the White Legs, and what they did to New Canaan. And I don’t want that to happen to the Sorrows.”

Dixie put a hand on Marius’ arm, holding him with a touch. “What happened to New Canaan?”

Follows-Chalk raised his hands just to let them fall again. “The White Legs… They killed everyone. _Everyone._ Not just all their warriors, but old and sick people. Little kids. I never heard of a tribe being that evil.”

Marius frowned. Something Graham had said the day before, about another courier…

“We’ve seen it,” Dixie said, sober. “Why did they come this far south?”

“They want to kill the rest of the Canaanites, and everyone who helped them,” Chalk said. “A bunch came here to stay with Daniel who lives with the Sorrows, but he got them all to move on and go somewhere safe, except Joshua. But now they want everyone in Zion Valley dead. The Dead Horses are the only thing standing in their way, because the Sorrows are good people, but…hunters, not warriors, neh? The White Legs would kill them all for fun. They don’t have a chance.”

Marius realized he and Dixie were staring at one another—it wasn’t just the rest of the Canaanites they wanted dead, but one in particular.

“And you two survived a whole White Leg ambush!” Follows-Chalk said, nudging Dixie on the arm. “You could help. You really could. I won’t get caught on my hinter when I can help. I think you won’t either. You argued with Joshia Graham, that takes _growans.”_

Dixie pursed his lips after a moment and turned back to Chalk. “So he wants the White Legs wiped out before they kill anyone here?”

“Maybe,” Chalk said. “But I heard him talking to Daniel, and he has a different plan. He wants to take the Sorrows to a place called the Grand Staircase, where the White Legs can’t follow. They don’t know how to survive out there. Maybe… Maybe you can talk to Joshua? You seem to…” For a moment, he looked uncomfortable. “You know him, huh.”

“Has he ever mentioned the Legion?” Dixie said.

“I’ll get our things,” Marius said, heading back into the cave.

“Oh, we’ll go with you,” Chalk said, with a mix of eagerness and nerves. He grinned as he added, “Hate to see you get eaten by a ghost.”

Marius just sighed through his nose and led the way in

***

Damianus could see him from across the river, observing as a pair of Dead Horses sparred in a circle of dirt—an arena, or close enough. For just a moment, he lagged behind. Graham couldn’t be forcing them to…?

He stopped entirely when one of them was forced back, unable to counter a sudden flurry of blows from his attacker, blocking desperately, the force of it sending one foot skidding out from under him on the dirt. His opponent raised her war club high, and the Burned Man said something short and sharp—

Only for her to lower the weapon, extending a hand. She helped him up, and another pair stepped into the ring. Damianus started breathing again. Beside him, he heard Marius mutter something dire, wiping a hand down his face.

They sloshed across the shallow river, any pretense at stealth lost. He caught the faintest turn of the Burned Man’s head as they hit the bank, and Damianus felt his shoulders draw up, wanting nothing more than to walk away, unseen. But it meant something to Follows-Chalk, for their orders to come from him.

The Burned— _Graham’s_ first move had probably been to beat a chain of command into the tribe, with him at the top. The cynicism of the thought, so like something Marius would say, made him look over again. “Do you want to keep an eye on these two for a moment?” he said, nodding to the current pair in the ring. “Just while I’m distracting the judge.”

Marius’ brows drew down, ready to argue, but he glanced at Graham and nodded, splitting off from the two of them. Damianus let Chalk lead as they approached, and he raised a hand to the Burned Man once he was in speaking distance. “They were in one of the Sorrows’ taboo caves,” he said, his voice a little sharper, a little more serious than when he’d spoken with them; reporting, rather than holding conversation. “They agreed to come speak with you.”

“Thank you, Follows-Chalk.” Chalk seemed to take it as a dismissal, stepping back and giving Damianus a look that was probably as much excitement at being addressed by name as it was warning Damianus to behave. 

The Burned Man faced him, and Damianus planted his feet, back straight. He wasn’t a particularly large man, but imposing, still. Something in the way he moved, maybe, or just the knowledge of who he was clung to him like a cloak—a knowledge that put a sick knot in Damianus’ stomach, to face him after a lifetime in the Legion. A lifetime of what he finally understood he should have never endured.

He realized he was staring, somewhere between lost in thought and waiting for an order, and his teeth clenched as Graham broke the silence. “I hope you have had time to reflect on your losses, and take solace in the temple that is Zion. I pray for your companions that were lost to the White Legs, and regret I could not prevent it.”

From anyone else, it might have sounded sincere.

But from a man who had threatened them yesterday, who had personally seen to the deaths of thousands…?

“We know what you want from us,” he said, barely unlocking his jaw long enough to get the words out. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

Graham tilted his head ever so slightly, either mild surprise or appraisal. “I only offer you mutual benefit,” he said, no expression in his voice. “Daniel cannot assist you until we are better prepared for… Less than ideal circumstances.” This had a frustration behind it that drew Damianus’ nerves even tighter, even if it wasn’t directed at him. He went on, appearing not to notice. “Even if a handful of the Dead Horses know to ignore the taboo on old-world buildings, they would not recognize the items we need. Follows-Chalk has tried—” that worthy grinned nervously, giving a little wave, “—but he is not…worldly.

“All I ask is that you deliver these things to him, before seeking his assistance.”

It was reasonable, sensible. Meaning there was a catch. “And killing the White Legs?”

“You’ve seen them,” he said, a slow, icy venom creeping into his words. “And you already know what has to be done. We both, I think, have seen the consequence of a tribe like the White Legs allowed to go unchecked, and understand the threat they pose if they are not stopped here.” 

Graham paused, folding his arms before going on more calmly, “I have yet to convince Daniel of this, and the good Lord knows I’ve tried. Together we might—”

“No.”

Damianus wasn’t sure if it was directed at Graham, who had narrowed his eyes at the interruption—or at himself.

Because he _had_ realized how much simpler it would be, to kill every last one of the White Legs, than to find some other way out of Zion. To do what Graham suggested.

To follow the Malpais Legate’s orders, without a second thought.

“No,” was all he could manage, backing away.

The fighting in the Arena hadn’t slowed, another of the Dead Horses calling the bouts. On the far side, Marius was showing the man who had fallen how to better set his feet, walking around him and shoving him from different angles, but unable to knock him over. He looked up as Dixie approached, frowning at him. He gave the fighter a nod before falling in beside him. “What did he say? I wasn’t listening,” Marius asked, a little too pleased with the fact.

_Or else you_ would _have jumped in,_ Damianus wanted to say; or something similar. Something to tease him, to make him hide a grin behind indignation, to go back to what he had already started thinking of as _normal._

He felt Marius take his hand when he couldn’t respond, lacing his fingers through his. He made himself focus on Follows-Chalk as he took the lead, and be aware of their surroundings—this was no place to be caught woolgathering.

_We,_ Graham had said.

Damianus tried to hide a shudder as they walked.

***

”Five or six years ago, now?” Follows-Chalk said, waving for them to stop. He listened for a second, and gestured them forward. The sun was still high, putting them exposed on the road as he led them away from camp. “I was just a kid, it was the year the Tar Walkers beat us back nearly all the way to Dead Horse Point, felt like. I don’t know why Joshua thought we’d be better fighters than them, but I guess the Dead Horses were looking for a little vengeance, eh? But then he left to go fight that war.”

Behind him, Dixie and Marius traded looks. “Sounds right,” Marius said. “The Legion raided across Utah a few times, but never really held it. Caesar cut the last effort short to focus on the Mojave.”

“Graham probably left them here as reserve, to replace men lost to the NCR,” Dixie said, pausing to point ahead. There was a ravine beside the road, and he led them down a sloping path.

“Of course it’s right, it’s true,” Chalk said mildly, then rubbed his hands together. “My turn! Both of you are couriers, travelers. Tell me about the places you’ve been.”

“What, all of them?” Dixie said, nonplussed.

“Au.” Chalk turned, walking backwards to watch them. It gave Marius a little vertigo, on the narrow, canyon-side path. “The world can’t be so big you forgot some of them.” He paused, looking a little concerned. “Can it?”

Dixie started on a story of somewhere in the West, while Marius peered cautiously down the cliff. The hulk of the crashed bus had split in half as it fell, tearing it open and leaving the inside exposed. Marius put his hand on Dixie’s shoulder, spotting movement in the wreckage, and the three of them dropped to a crouch, peering over the ledge. “White Leg scouts,” Chalk whispered. “They don’t like to go into buildings, but I guess a machine like that is okay to them.”

There were two, in even rougher garments than Marius was used to seeing on a tribal, scrap and salvage instead of anything they had made. Their hair was matted into rough locks—deliberately, Marius thought, even if they had resorted to a mix of clay and wrapped thread that made his scalp itch from yards away. His stomach dropped as a thought struck, and he reached over Dixie to tap Follows-Chalk on the shoulder. “Did they always wear their hair like that?”

“That I’ve seen,” he said with a shrug. “Why?”

“And these weapons of theirs, the storm-drums. Those are new?”

Dixie was giving him a questioning look, as was Chalk, on his far side. “Not really. Been using them for years, Joshua says”

“What are you thinking?” Dixie said, as the three of them crept back from the ledge.

“Not sure yet,” Marius said, slinging his rifle down. “But I have a couple guesses on how a rabble like that organized well enough to take down New Canaan.”

“They had help,” Dixie said, not a question. He was already feeling at his belt, loosening the throwing knives under his shirt. “Someone with a reason to go after Graham.”

“Right,” Marius said. Neither of them had to clarify who that was. Marius shifted to lean back on the canyon wall behind them, and paused as Dixie and Follows-Chalk started stalking down the path. “Where are you going?”

Dixie looked back, a finger to his lips, then used it to point down toward the river. There was a clank from the crashed bus, followed by laughter from the White Legs, and he gestured for Marius to follow.

He clenched his hands on the gun. “We can wait them out,” he whispered, a sick feeling in his guts.

_Coward._

“Two of them, three of us,” Chalk said, looking from Marius to Dixie for some explanation. “We got plenty of daylight left, but I don’t think we should waste it waiting.”

“Better we get the drop on them,” Dixie said, his frown taking a distinct shade of worry. “Are you—”

“Poisoned weapons,” Marius said, before he could finish the question. He pushed away from the wall. “I just don’t want you getting right up close with them.”

“Yes, mom,” Dixie said. “That’s your job, so stop dragging your feet.”

He tone was playful, even with the undercurrent of concern, and Marius made himself straighten, looking down his nose at him. _“Someone_ has to look after you, reckless.”

A tumble of stones led down to the river, and Dixie picked his way down, Chalk close behind. Marius found stable footing halfway up, leaning on a boulder to steady his gun. The White Legs had climbed on top of the bus, sitting in the sunlight as they sifted through the pile of garbage they had brought up with them. Their backs were to them, and they didn’t seem to notice as Chalk and Dixie took up hiding behind a piece of debris.

Marius wiped a hand on his jacket before sighting on the nearer one. He wore random pieces of metal tied together with broken, much-knotted string, already-pale skin covered over with chalk dust. He was smiling as he listened to the other one talk, inspecting the hinges on a metal lunch box as he opened and closed it.

Marius’ finger was on the trigger. Their tribesmen had slaughtered their entire caravan, and these two would have happily joined in. They had murdered children, Chalk said.

They deserved to die, if anyone did. It was justice.

Or were they just doing the Burned Man’s dirty work?

He saw Dixie twist to look up at him, and Marius pretended not to see, wiping his hands dry again. He could smell the sweat on himself.

One of the White Legs did a double-take, spotting the two below from the corner of his eye. Chalk had his pistol up, two quick shots making him stagger but not stop as he scrambled down the side of the bus. The White Legs were closing in on Dixie, stepping up with his machete drawn, and Marius managed to breathe, getting a bead on the one in front.

When it was over, he took his time climbing down, staying on the far side of the rocks, hiding as long as he could. He was mostly composed again as he splashed into the river, Dixie waiting for him as Chalk dragged the bodies out of the water. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Marius said; honest enough. “I was waiting on your signal.”

Dixie’s eyebrows went up, and back down just as quickly. Marius ignored it, passing him as he headed for the bus. “What are we looking for, compasses?”

There were half a dozen of them in the wreckage, plastic rectangles on cords hanging around the necks of the too-small skeletons. Marius was happy to pick one up and wander back outside, leaving Dixie to carefully remove them from their grisly resting places. Behind him, he heard Dixie murmur something, followed by Chalk asking, “But _how_ do they know which way is north?”

They didn’t, Marius realized. Digging out his own compass, he compared the two and frowned. He turned back to the front of the bus, feeling at the dashboard for a panel.

“There’s several here, but none of them point…” Dixie paused, leaning on the back of the drivers’ seat. He watched as Marius ran the magnet from the bus’s sensor module over the little plastic dial, drawing the compass needle with it.

He frowned at the result, and gestured for them to move. “Let’s get out of the bus. I think the metal’s interfering with it.”

Chalk led them up to the far side of where they had come down, crouching in the sand as he watched Marius work. “The entry on the terminal,” he said, nodding to Dixie. “It mentioned all the vehicles stopped moving, when the bombs fell, I think I remember reading about that—like how a pulse mine will disable a robot.”

Dixie nodded. Follows-Chalk looked blank.

“But that’s a magnetic pulse, and that’s how these work,” he said handing one of the repaired compasses to Chalk. “It probably ruined them all at once. They just needed to be magnetized again.”

“Shih ta-hey; good work,” Chalk said, turning it this way and that, as the needle kept its bearing. “You know which way is north, even on a cloudy night. But then… There wouldn’t be enough light to see it, huh.”

“That’s one drawback,” Marius said. He looked up to see Dixie, leaning on the rocks behind him rather than crouch, and giving him a smile that…

Marius had to look away. At least he was useful for something, to get…gazed at like that.

“Where to next?” Dixie asked, as Marius tucked the rest of the compasses in his pack. “And aren’t those for this Daniel?”

“Daniel isn’t here,” Follows-Chalk said with a grin, taking his hat off so he could put the lanyard on. “I’ll give it to him when we get to the Sorrows, promise.” He said, playing with the dial for a moment before letting it drop. “Right. There’s two other places we could go check out, and one’s way west, if we’re headed to the Narrows. Could go there first, and get to the other on the way?”

“Sounds as good as anything,” Dixie said, pushing off the wall. “Lead on.”

The path led them upslope to a small campground, a series of pre-war trailers still sitting next to fire pits. Dixie caught Marius’ hand as they walked, and he returned the pressure as he squeezed it—only for the two of them to run into Chalk’s back, as he frantically gestured them to take cover.

A hulking shape stepped out from behind one of the trailers, as they pressed back against the stone, behind a yucca plant. The yao guai sat up on its haunches, the arm between its teeth still gripping one of the White Legs’ scrap-metal gauntlets. It didn’t bother shearing it off as it started picking at the flesh, holding it almost daintily between its paws.

Chalk hunkered a little lower, looking back at the two of them. Whispering, he said, “Bet you guys don’t have anything as nasty as yao guai where _you_ come from, huh?”

They traded a look. “Imagine a gecko,” Dixie said. Follows-Chalk looked up for a second, thinking, and nodded. “Now imagine one that big,” Dixie went on, pointing at the bear up the hill, “and with a claw on each finger like _this_ ,” he said, pointing at Marius’ machete.

He pursed his lips, thinking. “Its arms would be too short,” he said at last, a little mulish. “Couldn’t reach you, even with big claws.”

“They have long arms, like a person.”

“You’re making things up!”

Marius half-watched the yao guai as the two of them bickered in hushed tones, tapping Dixie on the shoulder as the monster finally rolled to its feet. “If you’re done?” he said, and pointed a thumb up the path, opposite the bear.

It led into a low point in the valley, the cliffs and stone spires of Zion stretching into the distance. Dixie hesitated, turning to take it all in, and they both paused to let him, Chalk grinning like he’d designed the landscape himself. A breeze ruffled through the sparse trees, still holding stubbornly to a coat of dry leaves in Zion’s mild winter, bringing the smell of clear water from somewhere. A few birds called, and insects buzzed.

It felt, for all in the world, like nothing bad could happen here. That their arrival hadn’t been soaked in blood, and more promised to be shed, with Graham leading the tribes here to war.

Until a dog growled, somewhere out of sight, only for a voice to hush it. Pulled out of the reverie, the three of them shared a look, readying their weapons and on alert for the next White Leg raiding party.

Chalk hadn’t led them far before Dixie raised a hand, pointing at where the cliff face met the river, a trail of smeared white hand prints on the rock. Squinting into the sun, Marius made out a shadow in the stones, a low, hidden cave entrance. Chalk shook his head. “We can’t go in there, that place is…”

He trailed off, a delighted expression dawning on his face. Marius rolled his eyes at Dixie’s grin as he waded into the water.

They made their way in cautiously, as a group, eyes open for the traps that had been behind every turn in the last cave. Sure enough, a pair of rigged shotguns greeted them not far from the entrance, and Marius crouched to show Chalk where to cut the wire.

“Has to be the same guy,” Dixie said, as they probed ahead. “There can’t be two trap-happy survivalists running around this valley.”

Marius was inclined to agree; even if he had gotten more inventive here with an electrified door that Marius managed to overload, it felt like the same kind of paranoia. He wasn’t sure what the long-dead man had been defending himself from—it was impossible to say what was such a terrible threat, so soon after the bombs fell—but he had taken no half-measures.

The cave was more expansive than the last, with a wooden platform built up in the largest chamber. Follows-Chalk looked over it all with an intensity like he was trying to memorize every stalactite and ripple of stone, and Marius heard him mutter as he passed, “This is much better than following chalk marks.”

He tried not to grin as he joined Dixie at a terminal, squinting as he tried to read. “2083. He made it out of the last cave,” he said, eyes shining in the green glow as he stepped back. “He kept going.”

That last was half to himself, in a hopeful, almost breathless tone that made Marius pause. But Dixie just gestured for him to read, leaning on the rough desktop beside him.

“’May 5th. The comeback goes on,’” Marius read, as Chalk joined them. “’Add prickly pear to the list of survivors’…”

The two of them whispered behind him as Dixie caught Follows-Chalk up on who the man was, who had left the entries. The first year’s worth was just accounting for the regrowth of Zion, and Chalk audibly gasped as he recognized the description of the first bighorners. He murmured something in his own language in a tone of wonder, before gesturing Marius to read on.

They sobered, as he did. Their long-dead friend—Marius, now, could hardly think of him as anything else—had tried to go home. “’Never found our house. Didn't even find street. What wasn't a crater was scorched clean. Want to believe it was fast, a flash, both of you vaporized. Lies to make me feel better. I'll never know.’”

He had to stop reading a moment, and felt Dixie squeeze his shoulder. Marius swallowed the lump out of his throat and went on, pushing past the cold, remote pain two hundred years gone, but still raw on the screen. His voice broke again as he read, “’Look at it coward and listen don't turn away face it. If you'd been brave lucky man you would've found a spot and blown your brains out.’”

“Do you need a break?” Dixie asked, wiping his face dry. His voice didn’t sound much better than Marius’.

On his other side, Chalk gave a slightly awkward pat on his shoulder. “This is someone else’s grief,” he said. “Maybe it wasn’t left for us.”

He considered it, but… “He thought he was alone, when he wrote these. I think we owe it to him, to hear his story. Even so long after… Someone has to.” He leaned closer again, clearing his throat as he picked up where he left off.

Alone, but not for long. Marius read out the man’s account of other survivors making it to the valley; his fear of them, giving way to concern, aiding them without showing his hand. “’Will they make it through the winter?’”

“Did they?” Chalk asked, eager.

Marius shrugged. “That was the last entry,” he said, exiting back to the menu. “The last one ended the same way, he never said where he went, or why.”

“And he moved on to camp here,” Dixie said, voice still a little rough. “He probably just found another, safer place. Or joined the other group. They gave him a reason to keep going.” Marius watched as he set his mouth, straightening a little, with a lost look in his eyes even as they started to fill again, as if he was still playing the words over in his head.

Like a man who had been looking for that meaning, himself.

The words _I love you_ were almost on the tip of Marius’ tongue when Chalk clapped his hands. “We should keep going, too. Maybe find where he went,” he said, stepping briskly away. With his back turned, Marius just made out him fidgeting with his hat, an excuse to wipe his face.

Moment lost, Marius put an arm around Dixie’s waist, pulling him closer. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, a few tears still in his voice. “I’m alright. We should take what we need here and keep going.”

Marius put a light kiss on his cheek before pulling away, giving the terminal one last look. Whoever he had been, centuries gone, it was hard not to ache for the man and all he had seen. Hard not to feel like they had endured similar things. For a moment, Marius considered asking to stay a while longer, and searching the cave more thoroughly for clues about him and where he might have gone next.

He _should_ tell Dixie he loved him. It felt like the world was against them, still, and if he didn’t do it now, he might never have the chance to—

“Are _you_ alright?”

Dixie had one foot already on the ladder down, watching as Marius stared at nothing. In a fit of panic, he reached out, grabbing a little packet off of the terminal bench. “Screwdrivers,” he said, folding it open. He felt at the tips in the low light. “Probably small enough to get that Pip-boy open.”

He smiled at him, corners of his eyes crinkling. Marius tucked the packet away as he followed, Dixie and Chalk already drifting towards the exit, comparing a few of their finds. They had enough to get done, it seemed—their errands for Graham, that would see them out of Zion.

He couldn’t help but look back one more time, as he stepped off the platform. Of all the men in Zion there were to meet, of course the only one he would like to speak with was dead.

***

They parted ways with Follows-Chalk after scouring the general store and a nearby ranger station for supplies, coming up with an approximation of the first aid kits Daniel was looking for. With the kits distributed between, them Chalk had suggested a building on a rise for them to make camp, a radio aerial soaring above it. He had given them a slightly impish look and said there was a Sorrows camp he could spend the night at, and in his words, “Give them some privacy.”

The path he had pointed them to was straightforward, but Damianus kept slowing down, getting caught up looking at rock formations, squinting and making mental notes on the textures of the cliffs and how they reflected off the river when the sun was bright.

When he looked up, Marius had stopped to wait and watch him. "You want to stop a while?" he asked. "Not here, right? I'm not hanging around in sight of— _that."_ Damianus followed the direction he was pointing, at a cliff face covered in paint. A huge mural of the Burn—of Graham, stared down at them with hateful red eyes, his arm outstretched to mow down his enemies.

Marius looked ready to start hacking at the base of the cliff for as long as it took to topple it. Damianus grimaced at it, too. "I just keep thinking," he mumbled, " 'if he's changed, why do the Dead Horses paint him looking so much like the Malpais Legate?' "

"The only thing he's changed recently is the bandages."

"Mmh."

Marius breathed an angry huff out of his nose like a bull about to charge, and turned on his heel. He went stomping up the incline in such a hurry to get away from the looming image of Graham that Damianus, trailing after him, worried he might lose his footing on the gravel and tumble back down.

All the same, he called after him: "If you fall on your ass from running like that I'll only laugh at you."

Marius glanced back and snorted, but flashed a little grin. "You'd catch me."

"You're comfortable making that bet?"

His foul mood broken, Marius surged faster up the hill just to be contrary, and Damianus chased after him, laughing.

The ranger station at the top of the hill looked as good a place as any to relax a while, especially with another rain boiling up from the west. It offered them a roof, elevation off the wet earth, a single route of ingress up the hill with sheer cliffs to every other side, and a clear view down that made a killing ground of the approach.

It also offered a beautiful view in general, way out to where the red cliffs turned blue and purple with distance.

They put their things down in the shack and checked around for any useful supplies. The garage beneath held a little pile of cinderblocks and two large, heavy tarps. The cinderblocks they could use with a metal trashcan they found in the office above to build a fire safely inside—prop the can up on blocks and ring a few more around it to insulate it from the wood floor and keep it from tipping over. There was plenty of ventilation through the windowless half-walls all around, even if they pinned up the tarps to help keep the rain out on the sides the wind tended to blow through more.

When they were done Marius volunteered to gather firewood, and Damianus… it had been a long day. The idea of resting for a minute was tempting.

After waffling over it a minute alone in the shack, he grabbed his sketchbook and charcoals and went out to clamber up one of the rock faces towering beside their temporary camp, settling himself down and pulling out his glasses. He felt guilty to do this instead of anything useful, and struggled to enjoy it. Long day, sure… but he also had the Madre for a frame of reference. The longest day of his life, that he hadn’t quite registered as a full week until Marius told him how long he'd been gone.

He could be doing other things, find some chores. He sat and sketched the cliffs instead. Just one minute to draw, get the itch out of his system.

After a while he heard Marius puttering around in the shack again and calling out to him: "You better not fall."

"I won't, _mom,"_ he called back, not looking; he peered over his glasses to the spires of rock in the distance, then down through the lenses to finish his first pass of light shading on the page. The guilt crept up again. He glanced back, but Marius was sitting at the little folding table in the shack, watching him idly out the window. He smiled and made a little wave in Damianus’ direction that said ‘Go on, do your thing.’ Damianus waved back, and let himself relax a little as he returned to his work.

He'd started scratching in final details when a fat drop of rain landed right on the page.

He must have gotten tunnel visioned; when he looked up he could hear more of them pattering down, few and far apart but already picking up speed. He snapped the book shut and scrambled to get back down the rock. With little warning a sprinkle became a shower, became a deluge. It pounded down on the roof as he ran up the steps, bent nearly double to protect the sketchbook stowed under the front of his shirt.

Damianus was soaked through by the time he reached the shelter of the ranger shack, and found Marius cackling at him. “And what have we learned?” Marius asked, gesturing broadly at Damianus dripping all over the floor just inside the threshold.

“Rain wet. Fall fast,” Damianus deadpanned. He gingerly pulled his sketchbook out and winced at the soggy edges.

Marius laughed at him again, turning toward his pack. “Could have had a head start on it if you didn’t climb every rock in Zion like a bighorner with something to prove.”

Damianus dropped his damp sketchbook aside, and retaliated by stripping off his shirt, wadding it up, and fastballing it at the back of Marius’ head the moment he turned his back. It hit with a wet _slap._ Marius sputtered and whipped around, pretending to be angry. “Just seeing how the other half lives,” Damianus said brightly, waving a hand over his head at about Marius’ height to illustrate.

Marius hesitated, looking at him. Damianus resisted the urge to cover his bare, scarred chest like he hadn’t been more nude in front of men he knew far less. But he felt his face warm under the cold water still dripping down from his growing hair. After a moment, Marius threw the shirt back, smiling and flushed as he looked away. “Guess it’s about time you got some perspective.”

“Harr harr. Toss me my pack, I’m freezing in this. And don’t look while I change, degenerate!” he added as he caught the backpack Marius chucked at him and turned away.

“Not even a little?” Marius asked after a brief hesitation. Nowhere near as smooth as he was trying to be.

Didn’t mean it didn’t make his stupid insides flutter, which wasn’t fair.

Damianus glanced back nervously to make sure he really wasn’t looking, but Marius was faced away busying himself with pulling junk out of his satchel, playing it off. He fumbled and dropped a wrench as he watched.

“It might _be_ a little, so no—I told you, it’s cold.”

That got him a surprised belly laugh, and he grinned as he rushed to change into something dry.

He slung his wet clothes over a rafter near the door, away from anything important—having to do a little jump to accomplish it—and checked his sketchbook. Water had soaked almost a quarter deep from the top edge. The pages were bound to warp and stick together as it dried, and some of his sketches would be ruined, but it was a minor loss. Marius looked more disappointed by the damage than he was.

"It can sit near the fire to dry," Damianus said with a shrug, sitting down on the floor to arrange the cinderblocks they'd carried up in the corner. Marius looked to him for a nod of permission before looking through his sketchbook with a smile. It was mostly landscapes… and Marius.

"Think this is a good spot to make our fallback camp while we're here?" Damianus asked after a minute. "Close enough to the Dead Horses without having to share a campfire with the B—with Graham."

"I might push him in and finish the job if we did." Marius sneered, sitting down at the table to pick apart damp pages.

"Yeah, let's not. I mean, I'd hesitate to stop you, and you know I'd kill anyone or die for you. I'd just rather not provoke the tribes if we can help it," Damianus said patiently, stacking up the last of the concrete blocks.

Marius was quiet. Damianus turned to see what he was up to as he finished building the jury rigged fire pit, but found Marius staring at him thoughtfully, face twisted in discomfort.

The icy _'I've said something wrong'_ feeling dropped straight into Damianus' belly and he tensed. What was it he'd said?

Marius cleared his throat. "I'd uh. Really rather you didn't do any of that. Actually."

“Do what?” 

"Don't—I mean. Dying for me? Or killing people? That's a lot, isn't it?" Marius grimaced, setting the book aside on the table. "You know I wouldn't want that, right? I don't want that from you. And I hope you don't... actually think that way?"

Damianus looked down to avoid his eyes, embarrassed, and shook his head stiffly. "No. Maybe? If it came down to it, if I had to—" He leveraged himself up to kneel, most of the weight shifted to his good knee, so he could stack the firewood in the can to keep his hands busy. He'd only been making conversation. He hadn't expected it to be such a big deal.

"No, that's not—Look." He could see Marius fidget in his peripheral, running his hands through his hair. "I'd risk a lot for you, and I know you would for me. We've both done a lot of that already, right? We can take that as a given."

"Okay."

"I just don't like the idea of you…" Marius sighed. "I don't like the idea of you actually thinking about that, as something that's—I don't know…

"It sounds a lot like what you were told to do for the Legion," Marius added softly. "You know that, right? Even if you're joking, it's too close to—I don't want you to think you have to be expendable or a weapon for me like you were for them. That's not right. That's not what this is."

"Okay." Damianus nodded, not looking at him. "I _was_ joking," he added.

"... Are you sure? Look at me." Damianus glanced over, wincing at the concerned look on Marius' face. "I need to know you don't really think that way, Dixie."

"Okay."

"Okay?" Marius prodded.

"Okay. Yeah. I mean, I don't. I didn't mean to—" He huffed out a breath and turned back to his work, arranging the firewood.

"You didn't mean what?" Marius prompted after a minute. When he didn't respond immediately, he could hear Marius sigh and get up, stride over to sit down next to him. "I'm not angry, okay? I'm not telling you off. But I'm not a psyker, so can you please... talk out loud? For me?"

Damianus glanced at him and gave a sharp nod, but he kept his hands moving, building the fire. Marius caught one in his as he went to strike the flint, and held it.

"Please?"

The words were still caught up. But he worked his jaw loose and said: "We're not in the Legion."

Marius' mouth twitched at the corners and he nodded slowly. "Yeah, we're not. Glad that's sinking in."

"Didn't mean to say it like we were. What I said earlier, I mean, about—" He rubbed his face with his free hand, and worked his fingers between Marius' with the other. "It's just been a long time that the only thing I _could_ say was—"

He sat with his face in his hand. The words tangled up again, but Marius sat next to him, let him lace his fingers through his. Brought his hand to his mouth and just held the backs of his knuckles against it, not quite a kiss but too tender to be anything else.

He wasn't going to let Damianus get away with trailing off and letting the topic die, obviously. Not this time. But he gave him time to puzzle it out, at least.

"We could kill and die for our brothers," he said slowly, palm still covering his eyes, "but not love them."

He felt Marius nod before lowering their hands into his lap, folding Damianus' between both of his. "But we're not Legion anymore," he repeated, and Damianus nodded back.

"You're not Graham."

Damianus dropped his hand from his eyes in time to see the sour look, like Marius had caught a whiff of something rotten. _"Absolutely not."_

"You don't want my blood to show how much you mean to me. I know that." Marius schooled his expression. Damianus finally stitched together his disjointed thoughts and said: "I _know_ that, I think. And I know how I feel. But it's… raw. And a little—a little scary, sometimes. A lot to put it in words and somehow feel like I've really… said it the way it feels. I'm not sure how to say it."

Marius watched him, face softening. "Yet."

"Yet," Damianus agreed. The thumb rubbing over the back of his hand made his shoulders slacken.

"I think you—we, have a lot to... unlearn."

Damianus nodded. There were a lot of things locked up in his chest and in his head that he wanted to say, and do, that all felt too big for him to contain them, and he'd only really had a week to just... barely begin adjusting to the idea that maybe it'd be okay if he let them out. Maybe he was allowed to.

He wanted to tell Marius how much he meant to him, for his own sake more than Marius', even. For the thrill of finally getting to be that close. To let someone that close.

But the old rules still knocked around in his head. Anxiety over being caught in the night—by whom, he had no idea—kept him from crawling into Marius' bedroll, just to hold him, even when he could barely fall asleep for thinking about it.

He still wasn't sure how to say 'I love you' out loud when the thought made his hands shake. And the words seemed too small for what he felt.

_'I'd do all the things for you I did for Caesar and the Malpais Legate'_ wasn't the right way to say it, though. Marius was right about that.

In the meantime, until he figured it out... he could start by leaning over to kiss Marius, who met him halfway.

This, he knew was allowed, ever since the walk up from Jacobstown: the soft little kisses, one following another and then another, curling nervous fingers around the back of his neck with his free hand. Marius tipping his chin with a little touch of his fingertips that made his stomach flip.

That nagging feeling kept coming back that he was broken if he couldn't just... do the things that everyone else found mundane. The Legion didn't even have to have a presence within miles for the memory of it to do its work, paralyzing him with the fear of… consequences. Like the universe itself would know he was being a bad Legionary, and strike him down for lying in bed with another man. For telling him he loved him. For brushing his hair behind his ear.

But Marius kissed the breath out of him, holding him against him with one arm, and that was a lot. It was allowed. Because Marius allowed it, wanted it. Because they both decided no one could tell them what they weren't allowed to do anymore.

If he was still around and still wanted to kiss him after all they'd put each other through, he might have the patience for Damianus to figure out the rest.

A thought stuck in his mind while they puttered around a while longer after that, quietly eating a quick meal of roasted yucca and the last of the packaged rations from the caravan. He ran it over and over in his head as they wound down for bed, and as Marius leaned to kiss him one more time goodnight.

In the moment, eyes closed, lips still brushing his, Damianus just said it, and it came out as: "Do you want to sleep with me?"

_"Yes,"_ Marius breathed, almost before he'd finished asking, and suddenly the breezy shack was too warm from the flush Damianus felt run up from his chest to his hairline. 

"I mean. Yes," Marius said, more deliberate and pretend-casual, reaching to cup the back of his neck with one hand. But Damianus was already pulling away, his eyes wide open with embarrassment.

"N-no, I meant—"

"What—"

"I meant—uhm, literally—" Damianus gestured weakly to his bedroll. Whatever god was listening, from Jupiter to Graham's Jesus, he hoped sincerely they'd strike him down where he sat. "I, I meant _sleep."_

"... Oh."

"Yeah."

They sat a moment, staring at each other in what could only be described as mutual horror. Damianus was the first to break eye contact, turning his back. "Uhm. Anyway, forget I said anything. Goodnight. I… goodnight."

Marius was silent as he climbed into his bedroll, and Damianus couldn't to look at him, keeping his back to him and facing the wall like the moment would dissolve and never have happened if he just pretended it wasn't there.

_Still waiting for that lightning strike, god, haven't I earned it?_

Minutes passed as he lay there. The shack was utterly silent except for the dying crackle of their fire and the softening patter of rain on the roof. Finally, he heard Marius shuffling to go to bed.

Or so he thought, until a hand rested tentatively on his shoulder. "Hey. Move over a bit?"

He looked back and found Marius crouched at the edge of his bedroll, an anxious look on his face. "If it's okay," he added, when Damianus didn't respond immediately. "I mean, it's okay if it's not—"

"Come on," Damianus said, voice a little strained, as he shuffled forward until he was pressed nearly to the wall and lifted the corner of the blanket in invitation.

Marius crawled inside without another word, adjusting to get comfortable in the narrow space while Damianus turned his face back to the wall. Beneath the cover, over his shirt, a hand rested on his side. Damianus took it without hesitation, lacing his fingers through Marius' and pulling his arm around him. He settled in closer, the length of his body pressed against the back of Damianus'.

It was awkward for the moment that had preceded it, but not for too long. Marius pressed a tiny kiss to the back of his neck and whispered, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," said Damianus in turn. He lay there, feeling himself relax into being held, stiff shoulders going slack. He allowed himself to lean his weight back a bit against the shape of Marius' body.

He wasn't sure who fell asleep first, but by the time he did, he didn't regret having asked.

***

Follows-Chalk was waiting for them at dawn, sitting a short ways from the hilltop ranger station. He waved as he stood. “We made really good time yesterday, I don’t think Joshua expected us to be in the Narrows until tomorrow,” he said by way of greeting, and his look turned hopeful. “There’s a lot of interesting places in Zion, more than I showed you yesterday. Besides,” he added, with the air of someone playing his trump card, “if you need to get around Zion without me sometime, better you know where everything is.”

“Graham can wait on us for once,” Marius said, before Damianus could even get his mouth open. “Where do you have in mind?”

“All over!” he said, gesturing for them to follow. “There’s a before times place called a fishing lodge that might have more things for Daniel, but we can take the long way.”

“The taboo doesn’t bother you?” Damianus said, walking alongside him.

He waved a hand. “There’s no ghosts in them, Joshua says. It’s just superstition, neh?” He sounded like a man trying to convince himself, and Marius put a hand over his mouth, discreetly. “Even those caves you went in were only dangerous because of the man who lived in them.” Chalk paused a moment, thinking. “Be careful telling any Sorrows that, though. Dead Horses stay out of them because they’re dangerous. Sorrows stay out, because they think they were told to by someone they call the Father. Might be a touchy subject.”

“Are there any more of them, that you know of?” Damianus asked, looking around like he might spot one as they headed down the path.

“Well…” Chalk shrugged. “More taboo caves, yes. But when you aren’t allowed in them, they don’t feel very important, so…”

“How hard can it be, between the three of us?” Marius said. “The Sorrows were nice enough to mark them out.”

Chalk led them trough the canyon with the ease of long familiarity, picking out the switchbacked paths on the canyon walls without hesitation. They were in no great hurry except for him, who was the only thing keeping the two of them on task even as he joked with them and pointed out overlooks to race each other to the top of, with only the feeble excuse of showing them landmarks to add to their maps. As he led, there was no break in questions he put to them about the lands outside of Zion. It wasn’t until the third “Joshua says…” of the morning that Damianus cut in, “You think highly of his opinion.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Chalk said, catching his breath after a near vertical scramble. He held out a hand as Damianus started up after him. “He turned the Dead Horses from Zion’s whipping boys into warriors. He’s been all over the Outlands—he used to be a war leader for a great tribe of tribes! I mean to ask him about maybe leaving the Valley one day, because he knows so much about it, but don’t have the growans,” he said, with an embarrassed shrug. He added, a little quieter as he helped him over the ledge. “You _know_ all this. So why don’t you trust him?”

Marius let them pull him up before saying, “We were part of that tribe.” Follows-Chalk’s eyes lit up, and Marius went on. “Neither of us wanted to be.”

He frowned at that, and was quieter as he led them across a rickety bridge, pointing out loose planks, yards above the Virgin River. “Why would you turn that down?” he asked when they were back on solid ground. “The Legion sounds like the most powerful tribe in the world—no one could poach your hunting grounds, or pose _any_ threat, with so many of you and a leader like Joshua.”

“We never had hunting grounds,” Damianus said, as Chalk turned back to look at them. “Not of our own. Not that we didn’t take from other tribes. We _were_ powerful. But… the closest thing Zion has to the Legion is the White Legs. And even _they_ are freer than we were.”

Chalk was shaking his head, slowly at first, then with more force as he turned ahead. “No. Joshua is a good man. He’s _helping_ us. He would have told us, if what you’re telling me is truth.”

“He’s not helping you, he’s just killing the White Legs however he can,” Marius said, with a seething anger that made Damianus tense. But it wasn’t directed at either of them, and he blew out a long breath before going on. “Think about it. He’d be a lot less convincing, if he said he was familiar with how the White Legs operate.”

Follows-Chalk’s steps slowed, and he finally stopped on the path before them, one hand brushing listlessly at a bit of tall grass that rose almost waist-high. “Maybe we should go right to the fishing lodge,” he said, subdued. “That’s where Joshua said we might find more supplies. But, maybe I’m silly to trust him about that, too.”

“Hey.” Damianus nudged him with an elbow as he came up beside him. He bit his lip a second, sorting through what he wanted to say. “It sounds like the Dead Horses feel like they owe—Joshua.” His throat nearly seized on the name. “It’s easy to do, when someone tells you they’re making things…better. But what they don’t tell you is that ‘better’ means…” He trailed off, looking to Marius.

“It usually just means doing what they tell you, without question,” Marius said, catching his hand. “To make things better for _them_ , and damn the consequences to the people around them.”

Follows-Chalk glanced down at their hands, then back up the trail, overgrown with scrubby plants. “I don’t think you’re being very fair to him,” he said, but quietly. “He really was different, when he was here at first. _Scary._ He still is, some, but not in ways that hurt people. I think you should talk to him. And not yell, next time.” He started walking, and the two of them dropped back a little as they followed. “I know this Legion still exists, but he’s not with them anymore. And he’s fighting the White Legs, who want to join it. That should mean something.”

“Wait, _join_ the Legion?” Marius said, speeding up to walk beside him. “Nobody told us that.”

“Maybe if you talked to Joshua, he would have!” Chalk said, throwing up his hands, and dropped them with a sigh. “Can we go back to talking about this California place? That was more fun.”

Marius gave Damianus a guilty look, falling back. Damianus caught up with Chalk. “We can,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. “We don’t have to talk about the—about Graham, anymore. But we can tell you about the Legion. They’re the reason I was sent to New California.”

That got a slightly skeptical, sidelong look, but Chalk waved a hand for him to continue. “So you were scouting an enemy?”

He clearly wasn’t thrilled with the topic, but neither was Damianus, hearing how the younger man idolized the Legate. But after a few minutes, Chalk’s natural curiosity took over, and he was asking question after question about the Legion—its size, its ranks, how it trained its men. How the two of them had been brought up into it.

_"How_ many years?" Chalk asked, aghast, as they waited for Marius to feel he'd picked quite enough jalapeños for whatever supper he was already cooking up in his head.

"Thirteen," Damianus said. He leaned against a rock, twirling his butterfly knife around his hand. "Along with my contubernia—"

_"Vass?"_

"Like uuuh… a small war party. Eight men."

"I'm sorry," said Chalk slowly, "but you put eight boys of thirteen together, you get maybe four men, depending how you count. That's children." His eyes were wide with astonishment as he stared at Dixie, and then looked thoughtfully at the ground.

"Tell me about it. But by Legion standards— _Graham's_ standards—we were old enough to fight and die." He flicked the knife from hand to hand as Marius stood. "They put us on the front lines at Los Lunas, fresh out of training, and they told us to charge, so we did. Alongside scared tribals they'd just taken at Sevilleta. The newest Legionaries always go to the front, men and boys, to weed out the weak from the strong. Plus, the little ones make the enemy flinch."

"And that's the lucky ones," Marius said grimly. "Women have it worse. You send men into battle after battle like that, the war gets them eventually, so you need more. And the younger you start them on their daily drip of 'Ave Caesar,' the more loyal they are," he said, with a quick glance to Damianus, who nodded his agreement.

"So they… need a lot of babies," Chalk finished, faintly.

"You see where I'm going. I'll spare you the details." Marius gestured for him to lead on. "That's the kind of policy Graham enforced—"

"You sure? Or was this the Caesar he answered to?" Chalk asked, a little agonized, like a man grasping at fraying threads, even as he turned and started back down the path with the two of them at his heels.

"Both," Marius said, baring his teeth. "Does it matter whether it was Caesar's idea? He couldn't have told it to the tribes himself, not at first. That's why he needed Graham to translate his orders. Caesar could never have been Caesar if Graham had just put his foot down and said 'no.' But he didn't." He shrugged. "So thirty years on, here we are."

“Were you born in it then?” Chalk said. “Would it be so bad, if all you knew—”

“I was the next best thing,” Damianus said, cutting him off. He looked at Marius, who was looking back with a grim, thin-lipped expression. “And… All it did was make it hurt more, to think I was never going to be…”

_A normal person._ He swallowed hard, looking away. He still wasn’t.

Might never be.

“I remember some of when they came for my tribe.” Marius voice was low, soft, like the words were fighting to hide in his throat. He glanced up at Chalk, to Damianus, then away. “Imagine in the space of a few hours, everything you knew is just…gone. Your family. Your name. Your clothes, everything you owned. They give you a red tunic and make you look like one of them, are told to act like one of them, and if you do _anything_ that hints that you aren’t, you pay in blood.” He turned away, rubbing at his face. “And then spend years being trained to do it to other people.”

Chalk was quiet a long time when he finished, and they glanced at each other a little guiltily behind his back. It was hard to face the ugly truth about someone you looked up to—Damianus could attest to that—but even if Graham had told the Dead Horses about the Legion he'd almost lured them into, it wasn't the whole story. Not without the first-hand account of what growing up under his fist had been like. The things they'd done and seen, and had done to them.

Follows-Chalk deserved to understand, truly, who Graham really was. Even so, Damianus took no pleasure in the troubled look about him as he finally lifted his head to watch where he was going.

They wound their way up the path along the river heading north as it passed noon, the sky a bright vibrant blue above the red cliffs around them, with more clouds pouring rain some miles off to the east. They were between rainy seasons, but Damianus would wager they were seeing the leftovers from northern snows blowing south and warming over the desert. As he watched the wall of rain coming down in the distance, he glanced down and spotted wooden structures up on a low ledge among the cliffs on the other side of the river, and tapped Follows-Chalk on the back.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing. "Not a forward camp for the White Legs, do you think? Don't like it that close the Dead Horses' camp…"

Chalk looked, and shook his head, the feathers in his hat waving with the gesture. "No, that's Sorrows' dead; they put them up on there to bury them in the sky. Sacred ground, so we won't go close. Nothing is for us there."

Damianus raised his eyebrows, but nodded. Not the kind of graveyard he was used to—not like the one he'd been left in. But the Sorrows' traditions were their own.

Would it have been worse to be left for the animals than buried three feet deep, he wondered? He shuddered as he pushed it out of his mind.

They carried on another half mile before Follows-Chalk paused in his step, and they stopped just behind him. The path ahead wound around the base of a cliff on their left, and a wide red boulder stood half a man's height on the other side—not a choke point, exactly, but the only other route out, other than back the way they came, was down an open slope to the river on their right, on low ground with no cover. They were in a bad spot, Damianus realized as Chalk bent his knees a little, ready to move with a hand going to his pistol. The two of them went on alert. "I saw movement," he whispered.

"Ambush," Damianus said, twirling his machete out of its sheath and lightly smacking Marius on the arm with his other hand. "Look alive, handsome."

"Wha—"

Damianus didn't pay any mind. As he'd done since he was a boy, he led the charge, relying on Chalk and Marius for cover fire as he sprinted straight towards the rocks on the right.

They didn't let him down. Two White Legs poked their heads above the rock, a third coming out of hiding from around the cliff face—and one went back down in a red mist as Chalk's pistol cracked. The living ducked immediately back out of sight, the tribal on the left barely getting away from Marius' rifle fire.

Damianus vaulted over the boulder, landing right on top of the remaining White Leg hidden behind it, machete first. Then he rolled aside, towards the river and out of line of sight from the tribal hiding across the path, just in time; chunks of rock pelted him as machine gun fire sprayed across the surface behind where he'd been standing.

He ducked low and hid, keeping an eye out for any other White Legs hiding around them as feet pounded on the dirt, and only peeked out after hearing a crack; the last of their ambushers reeled back from the butt of Marius' rifle as he flipped it around and fired.

They kept searching, staying low, for another minute after it was over. It had only been the three warriors.

Damianus found Marius staring thoughtfully at the corpse at his feet, pale, but when he caught Damianus looking he shook his head a little and pointed. "Their hair. It's a bad imitation, but I think I know where they got the idea." Marius shrugged. "Or it could be a coincidence."

"Not if they all have the same style," Damianus said, hooking his thumb over his shoulder at the bodies behind the rock, as Chalk dragged them farther away from the river water. "One or two is a coincidence, but they've all looked like that. That's some kind of observance."

Marius nodded.

He was quiet a long time as they continued on, keeping alert for more enemies and ambush points. After a while Damianus nudged him, hoping he'd say whatever was on his mind. Marius looked at him a moment, and smiled a little feebly. Then said: "You called me 'handsome.'" His grin widened smugly.

That _definitely_ couldn't be what he'd been thinking about all this time. All the same, Damianus felt himself flush. "Oh, come on, you've seen a mirror before. I know you have; you stare at them."

"Do not!" He leaned and nudged Damianus with his shoulder. "Wouldn't mind you calling me that more. But then, I've got to figure out what to call you back... sweetheart?"

Damianus wrinkled his nose and gently pushed him back. "I'm not a sweetheart."

"I beg to differ, but okay. 'Baby'?"

"Height aside, I'm not a baby either. But whatever you want, _sugarbear,"_ he said flatly.

Now it was Marius' turn to make a face, even as he snickered. "Stick to 'handsome.' "

He wasn't the only one laughing. Mortified, they turned as one, remembering that Chalk was with them. He was looking at them over his shoulder in turns as he walked, between keeping an eye on their path, a huge grin on his tattooed face. He pointed at Damianus and said to Marius: "He looks like a 'pookie' to me."

Marius laughed uproariously, even as Damianus protested.

The day went on like that, condemnation of the Burned Man set aside for the three of them ribbing each other as they walked. Damianus let it go. Laboring the point would only drive him away, and quite honestly, he enjoyed Chalk’s company. It had been too long since he had had the chance to just laugh with his peers at bad jokes, teasing one another as they skived off their duties. It wasn’t until afternoon that they finally turned to the fishing lodge and the last of the items on their list, and perhaps a way out of Zion.

Lagging behind the other two, Damianus paused, taking in Marius’ grin as he walked, the sky behind him framed by the sweep of the valley walls.

This place, beautiful as it was, suited him. Leaving it might be difficult, after all… But not for all the reasons Graham had impressed on them. Marius spotted him looking, and his grin softened into the look he saved for Damianus, and he felt his heart nearly melt.

Damianus sped up, reaching for his offered hand. It didn’t matter. Wherever Marius was, he was glad to be.

***

Dixie walked backwards out of the fishing lodge’s door, hefting a bit of raw meat in his hands. He clicked his tongue, and a trio of green geckos poked their noses out after him, eyes closing down to slits as they stepped into the sun.

Standing in the parking lot, Marius and Follows-Chalk watched as he led them away, finally tossing the meat down the trail, the geckos ignoring them as they swarmed past. Chalk nudged Marius with his elbow as Dixie paused, watching the animals scuffle over it. “Shoah! Look at him, you got a charmer, huh?”

Marius tried not to look too smug, shrugging a little. “He’s clever,” he said, just loud enough for Dixie to hear as he approached. He met his eye for a second, before looking again, longer, that little double-take of embarrassment and affection. Marius grinned as he followed him inside.

True to what Follows-Chalk had said, the lodge was almost untouched. Animals had broken in, tracking mud onto the floor, but there was no sign of human habitation, chairs still sitting at the tables, a few bottles standing at a curved bar; a little tableau of its last occupants. Standing in the afternoon sun leaking through the boarded-up windows, Chalk looked over it all with intense scrutiny, though hesitant to touch anything. Marius and Dixie took the lead, searching the room for the walkie-talkies Graham had sent them for.

“Here!” Dixie called, reaching through the broken glass of a cabinet, holding up a black plastic device with an antenna. “This looks like it. There’s two of them.”

Kneeling to look in a cupboard, Marius smiled at him, even if he had to reach for it a little. Examining the pool table and frowning at the felt-tipped end of a cue, Follows-Chalk said, “Goot sists. Should we keep going to the Narrows? We would reach it by nightfall.”

Marius looked to Dixie, who shrugged. “We might stay here tonight,” Marius said. “Would you be safe heading on without us? Or back to the Dead Horses, let Graham know we have everything?”

“No trouble with that,” Chalk said, giving the stick a wave as he tested its heft, then setting it where he had found it. “I can find the Sorrows again tonight, meet you in the morning to go north. You two outlanders don’t go wandering too much, alright?”

He grinned at the face Marius made, and shot a glance at Dixie before giving Marius an unsubtle wink. He flapped a hand at him as Chalk left, and proceeded to hop the bar, taking a look at the shelves behind it. “Aha,” he said, putting a few bottles on the counter. “This place really is untouched.”

He half expected Dixie to make a face out of habit, but instead he grinned. "Maybe later. I want to swim, and I have a low tolerance. Especially for vodka," he said, turning one of the bottles to peek at the label.

"Why, _Dixie Greene,"_ Marius said, only half exaggerating his look of shock, "when did _you_ drink vodka?"

"Only once. Back when I was buddying up to Divide caravans with NCR contracts." He got a kind of faraway look for a moment, smiling as he remembered something. "One was pretty rowdy. And they liked me, and they liked vodka, and they wouldn't let me get away with drinking water when I sat down with them."

Dixie hefted the bottle and said, _"Budmo."_

"I'm sorry, what?"

"It's like 'cheers.' I say 'budmo' and you say 'hey.'" He grinned that little grin that always made Marius smile unconsciously back, the wide one that furrowed the scar on his cheek and showed where he was missing a tooth from a brawl long past. "I'll show you when we open this, but first, like I said: I want to go swimming. Want to join me?" he asked.

"Can it wait just a bit? I want to crack into this thing while we have time, see if I can fix it," Marius said, hefting the broken Pip-boy. "Speaking of which, can I borrow yours to look at it?"

"You had better be able to put it back together if you take it apart," Dixie chided, but undid the clasp and unhooked it from his arm without hesitation.

Marius feigned offense as he took it with his free hand. "You know me better than that."

"I know. Do whatever you need to do, tech head." He leaned up and kissed him on the cheek before stepping away. "I'll kill some time building a bed or something."

"I thought you wanted to swim?"

"Yeah, with you." Dixie wandered past behind him, into the area with the pool table, scrounging cushions off the chairs. Arms full, he kicked one last cushion ahead of him as he headed for a side area with a couch and fireplace, arranging them on the floor in front of the hearth.

Marius sat up on a barstool and got to work, prying open the two Pip-boys to compare their innards and see if he could spot the difference between the one that worked and the one that didn't. He wasn't a master of electronics, by any means, but he was confident he could figure out nearly anything if he had a guide.

Dixie eventually finished building a satisfactory nest of cushions and blankets and came to rest next to him, watching Marius carefully straighten a bent pin with tweezers.

"Looks like some of these circuits are broken. Can I borrow your pencil?" he asked.

"Sure, sure, what's mine is yours apparently," Dixie pretended to gripe, even as he fished a pencil out of his bag and handed it over. Marius carefully drew over the corroded paths as Dixie watched intently, his chin propped up in his hand.

"I love you." It was so soft, so quiet, he almost didn't catch it.

Marius nearly dropped the pencil, head snapping up. "Buh?" he asked eloquently, not sure he'd heard that right.

Dixie's ears turned red as he stood and moved around the counter. "Nothing, I didn't say anything. How's it going?"

He hadn't said _nothing._ Marius wasn't sure, but he was sure. Wasn't he?

He'd heard that. _I love you._

_Say it back. Tell him you love him._

Dixie turned around, holding up a bottle of sarsaparilla he had found in the broken down fridge, glancing in his direction without really looking at him. He fidgeted with it a moment before moving to open it on the edge of the counter. "Well?"

_Come on,_ say it.

But it wasn't right. The moment wasn't right. Just too ordinary, sitting at the counter, futzing around with old tech and talking about nothing. There was something about Dixie choosing that moment to say it, when he wasn't doing anything in particular, that made his heart feel too big for his chest. But he wanted the right moment to say it back. He wanted to make it… something. Special.

Dixie was still half-looking at him, expectant and anxious.

_Just say it. Don't leave him hanging._

"Should be done. Just have to run it up and test it… you want to go for that swim after?"

Dixie glanced away to the door, and nodded. 

***

"Look out below!" Marius hollered, and took a running leap off the low cliff. He dangled in the air a moment on the rope he'd tied to a tree up there before he let go and hurtled feet first into the deep water eight feet beneath him.

The splash hit Damianus and he paddled away, dramatically coughing and spluttering as Marius resurfaced.

"Was it a big one?" he asked, wiping away his long black hair from where it was plastered to his face. It was growing out on the sides; Damianus would have to shave that for him again soon, unless he committed to the awkward process of growing it back out now that his scalp had healed and scarred.

"It was decent." Damianus swiped water at him. "For some scrawny no-muscle shrimp like you."

"What! Come here, you—"

Damianus turned and kicked away, surging through the water only a few feet before Marius caught him by his good ankle and tried to drag him back.

He dove instead, straight down and around, and Marius followed. They wrestled lightly under the crystal clear water, neither trying to harm the other, and when he was captured and pinned Marius released him as soon as he tapped his arm and allowed him to resurface for air, laughing.

It had been a long time since he'd done something like this, gone swimming around just for the fun of it. Probably since… the last time he'd been near water in his Legion training, when they could just barely manage a short while of splashing around and get away with it by claiming it was an exercise. Technically not untrue, since you never knew when they'd need to ford a river and Marcellus, Felix and Vito didn't know how to swim.

An exercise, right up until Erasmus pantsed him under the water and left him searching the riverbed for his wayward britches.

He considered Marius' shorts for a moment, but decided he didn't have the courage.

Still grinning and panting from their horseplay, Marius swam closer again and Damianus put his hands up to the surface, prepared to grab back or splash him, but he said, "No, no, c'mere," and leaned to kiss him instead. Damianus moved to meet him halfway, wrapping his arms around his shoulders.

They stayed like that a while, trading short, soft kisses between long drawn-out ones, and floating carelessly together in the cold river. Hands skimmed up his bare back, trailing some of the lines tracked there in old, ropey scars. Marius' lips were cool from the water, and Damianus could taste it, fresh on his tongue when he sucked at his bottom lip.

They were pressed together, chest to bare chest, kicking lazily to stay afloat with their legs slotted between each other's. He was all too aware of every inch of Marius' body, more lean and muscled than he gave him credit for when he teased him, and it was _good._ It was better yet when Marius parted his lips against his, and Damianus responded in kind, let him deepen the kiss.

He'd never kissed anyone before Marius, and certainly never like this: slow and hungry, leaving him breathless when they parted—speechless, not sure what to say or do. Not with Marius looking at him like that, his eyes half-lidded and lip pulled in between his teeth, his hands on his hips, something questioning and a little expectant in his stare. Of what, he wasn't sure.

Where were you supposed to go from a kiss like that? What were you supposed to say?

"Tastes like mouth," he said dumbly.

_Oh. Not that._

Marius made a startled noise and broke into peals of laughter—until Damianus leveraged his arms over his shoulders to dunk him in the water. "Shut up!"

They wrestled again, laughing and barely managing to not choke on water as they pushed each other around. Dragged each other under. Kissed under the water, came up for air, and did it again.

Marius still had his lips pressed to his when he started snickering all over again. "Tastes like _mouth,"_ he muttered, laughing.

"I didn't say I didn't like it," Damianus griped. "Maybe I need another sample," he added, feeling a little bold and pulling Marius closer by the waist. He obliged.

***

Marius had most of his snickers under control as they made their way back up to the lodge, Dixie still flicking drips of water at him whenever he couldn’t hold it in. He gave as good as he got, raking water out of his hair as he danced away, probably missing him by a mile—they had left their clothes in the lodge, and looking at him, in just a wet, clinging pair of briefs, was—

Was a lot more than his stupid self could handle, right now, the taste of those kisses on his lips. Which tasted like _mouth,_ sending him sniggering again, and got a half-shouted, half-laughed admonishment from Dixie.

Marius let him go ahead inside, grabbing one of the towels they’d left on the lodge’s stairs. He took a moment with his own, pressing his face into it as he tried not to make too panicked a noise. They were… This was…

He suspected how charming Dixie could be, when he needed; and Marius knew for a fact he could flirt his way out of just about anything. But between the two of them, once they got past the kisses, the gentle touch, the whole thing just collapsed into clammy hands and being a dumb teenager all over again, and saying things like—

He snickered again, heading inside as he scrunched water out of his hair.

Dixie was sitting on their nest of cushions as he poked up the fire, a thick blanket loosely wrapped over him. Marius watched him sidelong as he dried off, but Dixie kept his face studiously down. Trying to return the favor, he stopped by the bar as he dried off, but couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering—he had only just pulled the blanket over his lap, exposing the scar-tracked skin on his back, the lean muscle at his waist, and Marius—

Felt himself flush, and kept the towel slung over his shoulder so most of it lay over his front, shorts or not. Outside, in the water, there had been that breathless vulnerability in it, that sense of breaking taboo and taking a risk—as there had been, with as many hostile creatures and tribals as there were in Zion. But here, in the cabin, it was just the two of them, and that…

Yep, _exactly_ like being a stupid teenager. It _had_ been a while, for it to make him so nervous.

As he pressed the last of the water out of his hair, he spotted Dixie looking, from the corner of his eye. Pretending not to notice, Marius took his time, combing through it with his fingers, shifting his weight idly, to best advantage. He dropped the towel to hold it at his waist when he was finished, and Dixie was tending the fire again, distinctly red. But he lifted the edge of the blanket, and Marius accepted.

It wasn’t cold in the cabin, except in comparison to the sun on bare skin. But Dixie seemed to burn against him, leaning against his chest with Marius’ arms around him. He leaned his head back on Marius’ shoulder, eyes nearly closed, and turned his head to put a soft kiss on his throat. As he did, he hesitated, then put a hand to Marius’ chest with a questioning look.

Heart racing, Marius couldn’t breathe, realizing how Dixie fit against him, the soft heat of skin-on-skin. Realizing he had craved this. That he loved him in a way that made his heart want to burst.

He leaned down to kiss him, and his lips were pliant, yielding, his body almost melting against his. Stroking a hand up Marius’ thigh, Dixie shifted to face him, and Marius held the back of his head as he leaned in to kiss him, deeply, slowly. He slid the blanket off the two of them, gently laying him back, cradling him on one arm.

Dixie’s hands were trembling as he stroked at his waist and back. Marius nuzzled at his throat, caressing his side with his free hand and curling over his hip bone. His breath caught, at the thought of him naked under him, fully—but no, start slow, they had been close enough to this outside.

“Marius.” His hands were on his chest now.

“Dixie,” he breathed. He slipped a hand under his leg, drawing him up closer. Dixie made a soft sound as he rubbed against him, and Marius tried to bury his face in his neck, holding him tight, but his hands were between them still—

“Marius!”

He looked down. Dixie was flushed, breathing fast—but with as much panic as want. Marius let him go, and Dixie sat up as he pulled away, not looking him in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he said, sitting awkwardly to hide his…problem. “I’m sorry, I thought you—”

“I do! I did. I just…” He made out his shrug as he pulled the blanket over his shoulders, hunched up on himself. “You just kind of…” He shrugged again, bigger, trying to put the words he couldn’t find into the motion. “Went for it.”

His voice was miserable, embarrassed. Marius looked over, and seeing his face, gently put his fingers under his chin, raising his head just enough to place a gentle kiss on the scar on his hairline. “I’m sorry,” he said, lips still brushing his skin. “That was too fast. I should’ve…”

“No, I should have…” He only met Marius’ eyes for a second, but lifted the edge of the blanket, inviting him in, and he mumbled, “I’ve just never…with anyone.”

“I know. It’s overwhelming if you’re not…ready,” Marius said. Dixie was tense this time as he held him, relaxing slowly as he just hugged him close and stroked at his hair, placing soft kisses on his head. “It’s okay. I want this to feel right.”

_’I love you.’ You stupid, stupid man, just say—_

“Yeah,” Dixie said, a little lamely. “I just…”

“I… care about you.” Marius groaned internally. “You don’t need to apologize. It’s alright.”

They hung onto each other a moment longer, trading soft, gentle kisses, only letting go long enough for Marius to pile more logs on the fire. He settled back with Dixie cradled to him, pulling the blanket over them both, wrapped up in each other.

After a while, Marius woke enough to murmur, “This is good,” with his eyes still closed. Dixie nodded sleepily against his chest, sighing as he hugged Marius tighter. Without looking, he put one last kiss on the top of his head, and fell asleep, breathing him in.


	3. Chapter 3

Follows-Chalk was waiting at the picnic tables outside the fishing lodge, leaning on his elbows. He didn’t seem to hear them approach, holding the compass around his neck flat in one hand, his chin in the other, as he stared off into Zion’s blue distance. He looked up as they got closer, pensive expression overtaken by his usual grin. “Late risers! I was going to go make yao guai noises by your window.”

“Call one in and see if we gave you any help,” Damianus said, falling in step with him. Chalk snorted, but his expression faded as he looked to the path ahead. “About time to get to the Narrows, then?”

“Au.” _Yes,_ Damianus had figured, and waited for Chalk to go on, still fidgeting with the compass a little. “Joshua said I should turn back at the Sorrows’ territory, and come back to the Dead Horses’ camp.”

A step behind, Marius muffled a yawn as he said, “Are you going to listen to him?” Damianus shot him a look over his shoulder, flapping a hand. Marius shrugged and only looked a little repentant.

“I have duties to my tribe, still,” Chalk said, unbothered. “The older scouts say there’s something up with the bighorners, but are too busy to deal with it. Trail marks need touching up. Things like that. Stuff we did before Joshua came back. I would like to travel with you more,” he said, shrugging, “but I think maybe it’s time I stopped…”

“Stopped what?” Marius asked, a little more kindly.

Follows-Chalk shrugged again. “I think it is not important, really. My duty is to get you to the Narrows, and the Sorrows, by today. And then see if Joshua has any more tasks for me.”

The last was said with a bit of truculence that made Damianus take a deep breath, unsure of where he was headed with the thought—and the idea of him standing up to the Burned Man who still cast a shadow over Damianus’ memories, over all of Zion.

Chalk led them down along the river, the walls of the canyon rising above them, closer and steeper than anywhere he had taken them before. They talked still, but the tone was different, tinged with a little regret, and finally he stopped when the valley drew to a narrow choke point. “This is where we part ways,” Chalk said, soberly. “I talked with the Sorrows I was camping with, they will welcome you. And I still have these…” he added, slinging down the bag on his shoulder, with the first aid kits they’d scraped together.

He hesitated with a hand on the compass, before moving to take his hat off with it. Marius held out a hand, gesturing for him to stop. “Keep it,” he said. “Daniel won’t miss one.”

“It could be useful,” Damianus added. “You mentioned wanting to leave Zion, once.”

“Mentioned _thinking_ about it,” Follows-Chalk said, settling his hat again. His grin returned. “Maybe I’ll ‘find’ one more compass for Daniel later. We will have to see.

“I’ll look for more of your dead man’s caves,” Chalk added as he gripped Damianus’ hand. “I know there’s more. Don’t leave Zion before I can bring you there, neh? He might be dead, but I think his ghost could use friends like you.”

“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” Marius said, shaking his hand. “You’re safe heading back alone?”

“I know this valley,” Chalk said, a little amused. “There’s short cuts better for a man alone, who knows where to look. White Legs can’t find their hinters with both hands, I got some doubts about them finding these.”

He turned back as the two of them pressed on, into the shadows of the Narrows. He caught Marius looking back over his shoulder, and Damianus said, “He’ll be alright. He knows this valley.”

“I know he does,” Marius said, taking his hand as he looked forward again. “More worried about him if he tries to have it out with Graham.”

“You were screaming in the Burned Man’s face, yet here you are,” he said, giving his hand a little swing. “He’s got more sense than that, I think.”

He huffed a little, mock-offended, and Damianus grinned. He looked up at a whistle from a cliff above, and someone waved down at them. Still in the shadows, Damianus couldn’t make out many details, other than some kind of heavy gauntlet on one hand, but waved back anyway. White Legs would have just opened fire.

They turned to shout something deeper into the canyon, and there was the sound of water splashing, kicked up by many feet. The Sorrows called what Damianus took to be greetings, half a dozen of them beckoning them to step from the strip of bank along the wall and into the water, following them. All wore simple clothes, some with capes of hide for warmth. But to a one, they bared a great deal of skin on their fronts, revealing long, waving tattoos that ran nearly from neck to knees.

“Holadu, na’ne,” one of them said, a woman with a fan of feathers on the back of her collar, framing her face. She smiled warmly at them, incipient care lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth deepening. Counterpoint to her expression was the weapon she carried, the paw of a yao guai fashioned into a gauntlet, the claws still wickedly sharp. “Welcome. Our hunters met with Follows-Chalk of the Dead Horses, who told us of you. Daniel asked me to bring you to him.”

Beside him, a few of the other Sorrows had surrounded Marius, tugging at his jacket. “Ke tribu katu?” one of them was asking, trying to lead him along. “Toht-shii spahr shai est tribul. Ke tribu?”

“Um, walker?” He glanced over at Damianus, and they both shrugged. “Sorry, but I should go with…”

“It is fine,” the woman with the feathered collar said. “We wish to welcome you, and offer a gift for what you have brought us.”

Thus reminded, Marius tossed his pack to Damianus before being hustled up a path that ascended the valley wall. He watched him go, concerned, but the woman beckoned him again. “Come now. We will look after your friend, this I promise. Follows-Chalk made it sound like he has much to mourn, and we will give what help we may.” She smiled again, shaking her head. “Forgive me, it has been long since the Sorrows have had visitors who are not White Legs. Greetings and blessings on you, Waking Cloud is my name.”

“Dixie Greene,” Damianus said, still puzzling over Marius and his mourning—losing the caravan? Coming back to the moment, he hefted Marius’ pack. “We have the supplies Daniel asked for, through Joshua Graham.”

“We thank you for them, doing this work in a time of grief, but now is a time of sadness for us all,” Waking Cloud said. “We have heard about your caravan… I mourn your loss, but the Father has taken them into his embrace. I hope that is a comfort.”

It wasn’t, really. Or much of an explanation. “Thank you,” he said anyway, not sure how else to reply. He had no plans to offend these people within five minutes of meeting them, least of all someone as friendly as Waking Cloud.

The valley walls opened slightly as they walked, giving way to a strip of beach with shelters of salvaged wood built upon it. Cliffs ranging from narrow ledges to deep shelves stretched above them, a couple bridges spanning the gap, and more Sorrows looked curiously at them from above. He looked down as she said, “Daniel, this is one of our couriers, sent by way of the Dead Horses. Dixie Greene, this is Daniel, missionary to the Sorrows from New Canaan.”

A man was standing from beside a fire, brushing sand off a pair of jeans that had seen far better days. So had his plaid shirt, but the patches on it were tidy, if mismatched. He resettled a black cowboy hat as he gave Damianus a similar looking-over, frowning a little behind a short beard. “Hello, I’m glad you got here in one piece. We heard what happened to your caravan—a stranger's sympathy might not count for much, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry.”

Damianus murmured something vague back at him as he shook his hand. “We have all the supplies you asked for,” he said, passing him the bag Chalk had been carrying, and slinging down his own pack to rummage through it. “There weren’t any proper first aid kits, but we put together some things that should work.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Daniel said, looking inside one of the lunch boxes. “I was starting to lose hope we’d get our hands on _anything_. Tribals are smart, but, well… They’re ignorant.” Damianus frowned. Daniel didn’t notice, testing the batteries on the walkie-talkies. “This is all excellent, you really are a godsend. But if we’re evacuating Zion without drawing more White Leg attention, I’ll need you to go out into the valley again.”

“I’m sorry?” Damianus said. Daniel paused, clearly surprised at being cut off, and Damianus waved a hand at the supplies at their feet. “We’ve brought you what you need. Graham said you would be willing to assist us, if we did you this favor.”

Daniel folded his arms, sighing through his nose. “Normally I _would_ drop everything to help you, but my colleague is in no position to speak for me,” he said, a little sternly. “Right now, I have to put the Sorrows first. God knows it’s our fault the White Legs are here, and therefore it’s our job— _my_ job—to fix it. I’ll give you what help I can, but—”

“’Help’ would be a map out of here,” Damianus said, a little surprised at himself. Marius was rubbing off on him. “This isn’t our conflict.”

Daniel wiped a hand over his beard and held up a finger, silent, as if requesting a moment to master his anger. “I’m not going to repeat myself,” he said, low. “I know what brought you here was tragic, but you were not invited here and this is not your home. I understand you want to _go_ home. Our beliefs compel us to help those in need, but the greatest need in Zion right now is not yours.”

“Daniel, please,” Waking Cloud said, making a quelling motion with her hands. “This man has been through much lately. As has Daniel,” she added, looking to Damianus. “Perhaps a rest is in order, before more work is done.”

“I’d rather move as quickly as possible…” Daniel grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Weren’t there two of you? Don’t tell me the White Legs—”

“He was been taken to White Bird’s cave,” Cloud said, smoothing over what was aiming to be a tactless remark. “He asked to meet with him.”

“Ah,” Daniel said, clearly a little less than thrilled—but trying to hide it. “Well, that puts everything else on hold for a while. When that’s over, find me, and I can get into the specifics of what we need.”

“A good plan,” Waking Cloud said. “For now, Dixie Greene, I will accompany you as you travel in our canyon. It is a dangerous place, but I will show you how to move in it, unseen.”

“Alright?” Damianus said as she led him away, not sure how to turn her down. “Though I see no point in wandering around right now, until we know what our next move is.”

“Finding your friend,” she said, gesturing up at a cliff ledge. Marius was stumbling out of a cave, looking rather vaguely down at them.

"There you are," said Damianus, "Done playing tourist? This Daniel has more chores for us." He gestured to the woman at his side and added, "This is Waking Cloud, she's to come with us."

Marius stared at them, swaying slowly on his feet. "What does it mean when the clouds wake?" he asked.

She chuckled. "I am interested in what you think it means," she said gently.

"A wake like a funeral," Marius told Damianus, who squinted at him. His pupils were blown wide. "Oh—the rain is their tears, do you get it? For their Sorrows."

"Marius. Are you high?"

"I think so, yeah."

Damianus gaped. "Why?" he asked, in lieu of any better question.

"White Bird gave me some datura tea—"

"You—you drank—that's poison. You drank poison?!" Damianus demanded, panicking. "Why did you—"

"Why the hell not? I'm on vacation," Marius said with a slow shrug.

_"Marius."_

A hand landed on Damianus' shoulder. "He's on a vision quest," Waking Cloud said. "It's a great honor, a rite of passage in our tribe. White Bird sent him on a journey he must realize, and we can help him. The tea is safe," she added with an amused smile, and Marius nodded.

"I have to go fight a bear," he said placidly.

"That's not safe!"

Damianus gave in as Waking Cloud assured him that the datura was diluted and mixed with other plants and herbs to offset some of its worse effects. There was little point in arguing, given Marius already drank it—nor in insulting the tribe they were trying to get along with by denying his quest.

"Do not worry," Waking Cloud told him gently, as they reached the stream and began to follow it out of the Narrows. She hefted her clawed weapon with a smile. "I will be with you, and I have fought such creatures before, for my own rite of passage."

Damianus nodded and pulled the long necklace he wore out from the collar of his shirt and showed her the animal teeth hanging from it. "I've dealt with yao guai too, out in New Mexico. Not as big as the ones I've seen in your valley here, though," he conceded.

She had different ideas of personal space than he was used to, as he discovered when she reached with her free hand to grab the necklace without pulling it taut. He allowed it, even as his instincts said to shy away from the closeness as she leaned in to look. "No, not as big," she said, jangling the teeth a little in her fingers, "but—it gave you those scars?" She gestured with the necklace at his face, before releasing it and letting it fall back against his chest.

He shook his head, but lifted his left arm, showing her the long, ropy pink scars that ran down his forearm and under his handwraps. She touched them with her fingertips, tracing their path, and he managed not to flinch away. "No, but it gave me these. Barely got my hand out of its mouth before it could snap down and take it off."

"Then you have survived something many do not, just the same. We are well prepared to aid your friend." She smiled brightly, and Damianus couldn't help but summon a smile in turn despite his misgivings. He tugged Marius' hand to pull him along and stop him reaching for the fish swimming around their ankles.

His steps slowed as they neared the exit from the gorge, and even Waking Cloud drew up a little, surprised. Graham was waiting for them where the cliffs tightened around the stream. He raised a hand in greeting and came sloshing towards them. Damianus didn't wave back. Whatever he was expecting Graham to say when he got close, it wasn't what he got. For a moment he thought he, too, was as high as Marius, reciting nonsense.

" 'O Daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed. Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou have served us,' " Graham growled. " 'Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.' Do you know what it means?"

A long, silent moment passed.

"... Are you making fun of my lisp?"

 _"Are you making fun of his lisp?"_ Marius echoed, and Damianus put an arm out around his middle as he took a step forward.

"I beg your p—" Graham stopped, and chuckled. "I forget that you haven't read the scriptures. It must seem very foreign to you."

"Most storybooks are," Damianus said slowly. As he spoke he took off his necklace and put it in Marius' hands to distract him, as he'd done before with fussy children—to similar results. He went on: "I only learned to read six years ago, and it's still a headache. Now ask me why it took so long."

Another tense moment passed as Waking Cloud looked between them with a surprised expression, startled by his disrespect. She might have said something if it had been Daniel, he suspected, from the short conversation he'd had with her so far. She respected that one. She didn't have much to say to him talking that way to Graham, though. But then, maybe she recognized that this was something personal—something about a history between them that she wasn't in on. One he had had a chance to think on this time, speaking with Follows-Chalk, and Damianus set his feet more firmly, as though bracing for a fight.

Marius only muttered to himself, clinking the teeth and charms on the necklace together. At least he wasn't trying to deck Graham.

"My apologies. You two made it clear in our introduction that you were from the Legion. You've been through a great deal, and at my own hand no less. There are no words sufficient to heal that wound." Damianus only snorted. Graham started to fold his arms in front of him, then clasped his hands instead. His rigid posture said he didn't take kindly to Damianus' challenge, but he played the penitent man rather than rise to it. "What I meant to say—"

"You meant to say that you want to fight and kill the White Legs, I got that." Damianus lifted his chin. "I'm a little slow without book learning, but I get there eventually. What's the part about being happy to kill children?"

He bowed his head, just slightly. "It's about… the joy in doing righteous work, even when it is grim.

"Zion is a monument to God, a gift to His people. I cannot stand by and watch it be spoiled by the White Legs and the corruption they bring with them." Graham spread his hands, gesturing around them to the red cliffs, the blue green waters swirling around their feet, the falls roaring nearby. "You do not believe in my Lord, perhaps, but you can believe in Zion. The beauty and sanctity of this place that stands to be lost."

"So your vengeance is justified, if it's to save a pretty chunk of land."

"It is more than a 'pretty chunk of land.' It—" Graham paused a moment to watch as Marius slumped against Damianus, rubbing his cheek against the fuzz of his hair. Damianus didn't break eye contact. "... It is a centuries-old home to a people who asked for no part of this conflict," he finished at length.

"Then you should not have brought it to them," Damianus told him, gently but firmly removing Marius' hand from the bit of his chest bared by his low collar.

Graham had just enough grace to not acknowledge it, as Waking Cloud moved to gently extricate Marius from Damianus' personal space. "Have you not run here from the Legion? Why should I have done different when the White Legs took my home?"

"We didn't bring the Legion with us."

"What's done is done, and if nothing else, then it is now my responsibility to undo that harm, by fighting back to protect this place and these people from the mistake I made," Graham said firmly, in a voice he must have thought brooked no argument. Damianus intended to argue. "My 'vengeance' is an act of goodwill. The destruction of a plague of locusts, an act of righteousness."

Damianus nodded, slowly, thoughtfully. Then he said, "What's my name? What's his?" He pointed to Marius.

Graham tilted his head and looked at him slightly askance, confused by the question. "You introduced yourself to the Dead Horses as Dixie Greene, and him as Alex Rojas," he said, gesturing to Marius, who was staring open-mouthed at the water rippling around his feet, apparently deep in thought about it, as Waking Cloud held him by one arm and gently stroked his back while she listened to the two of them bicker.

"No. Those are cover names and you know that." Damianus crossed his arms. "What are our Legion names?"

Graham was silent. They stared at each other, and Damianus could see an inkling of where he was going with the question sinking in as Graham narrowed his eyes. The silence went on long enough that it became clear they were both waiting for the other to speak, Graham certain that Damianus would go on and make his point, Damianus certain he had no intention to let him off the hook that easily.

Finally it was Graham who broke first. "I'm afraid I don't know."

Damianus nodded again. "I know you don't. And that's why you don't get to tell me anything. The answer is no. I am not going along with whatever it is you're planning."

"You must believe as I do in the evil in a tribe of raiders like the White Legs. You and I understand what Daniel does not: if we let them win here, they will not be satisfied, and they will not be stopped."

"Maybe. But I—I followed you once. I killed who the Malpais Legate told me to kill." He bared his teeth. He could still see the face of his first. He dreamed it still, sometimes: that look of surprise to be facing a thirteen-year-old child on the battlefield. One who must have looked much younger; he was always small for his age.

That hesitation, that horror, was burned into his memory, partly because he knew well that it was the only reason he was the one who walked away alive. He could have died that day. He could have died every day after that. Wherever Graham pointed him, he'd left a trail of bodies just to survive to adulthood. Made himself a canvas of ugly battlescars.

"Now you want me to do it again," Damianus snarled, barely recognizing his own voice, "and you have a shiny new reason to convince me it's right this time. It's not like last time. Is that right?" He shook his head, holding Graham's hard stare. "You don't even know our names. The ones _your_ people gave us. I don't even know what my mother called me anymore, because of you.

"You want to tell me what's right and wrong? You couldn't pick either of us out of—out of thousands of boys you sent to kill for your idea of righteousness. Not me, or him, or _my friends who died for you at Boulder."_

He felt Marius take his hand, whether because he was tuned into the conversation or because he just wanted to, and Damianus squeezed it back

"The answer is no," Damianus repeated.

He tugged Marius along as he pushed past Graham, checking him with his shoulder as he did. He looked back only when he met resistance from Marius pulling. Marius was leaned backwards as far as he could go, and Damianus realized he wasn't trying to get away from him—he was only pausing to flip Graham off as he passed him by.

He managed, if barely, not to laugh aloud—but he was grinning as they followed the stream out of the Narrows, Waking Cloud following at their heels.

***

Everything was hideously bright.

Marius looked over at Dixie to ask if they had gone somewhere with too much sun—another planet, maybe—but was distracted by the ghostly trail he left as he walked, like many Dixies following each other uncomfortably close. There was something terribly important about that, but it slipped from his mind as he stared, and the ghost-Dixies faded as the real one stopped walking.

He sighed a little, looking back at Marius. “How long is this going to take?”

“Yes,” Marius said. Everything would certainly take an amount of time.

Dixie sighed again, and a woman, a stranger, patted him on the back. Her voice echoed oddly to him. “It can last half a day, perhaps, long enough to journey to a den and back. But there is a reason those on a vision quest are accompanied.”

She smiled at him as she took his hand, leading him on a cliffside path with an edge that dissolved into fragments of light, and Marius shied away, keeping his other hand on the stone wall beside him. Waking Cloud, he remembered. He liked her. She reminded him of his mother, and an old, heavy longing rose up in him.

“Are you feeling alrigh—no, of course you aren’t.”

 _Dixie._ His heart felt full, and he reached back for his hand, too. He loved him a lot, but it came out garbled as he picked the wrong Dixie to hug, and just sort of staggered with an arm looped around his neck. He couldn’t bear to think of missing him like that.

“Bear,” he muttered into his neck, remembering something.

“Yes, we’re going to kill one. This is very sweet, Marius, but we need to keep moving,” Dixie said, rubbing his back. “I’ll feel a lot better when this is over with.”

“Okay,” he managed to say, with a mouth that belonged to someone else. He tried to swallow a few times, hoping he could get his back soon; this one was very dry.

Something about a bear, he thought as he was chivvied on. Kill a bear, take its paw, go back to the Narrows. Then Dixie would be happy again. That was the important part.

Waking Cloud walked ahead of them a while, and Marius watched her, mesmerized by the ripples she left in the air. It was like watching her wade through the river, only the river was…was time, and…

Something profound was just out of his grasp, he was sure of it, when Dixie asked quietly, “What does ‘walker’ mean?”

Left foot, right foot, that was walking. He stumbled on something. Left foot. Right foot. Kill a bear. Paw. Narrows. Dixie. Left foot, right foot… It was hard to focus on, but there was a way to make it easier, wasn’t there?

He swallowed again to clear his throat. A canteen was pressed into his hand, and Marius drank without questioning it, until Dixie was tugging it away, saying something about him drowning himself. He coughed a little as he held it level with his chin, not letting him take it back—his mouth was _so_ dry—and started to sing.

 _“Zhes sta he’er, wes a zta…”_ He liked how the near-empty canteen made his voice echo. _“Ama salve, wes proba.”_

He hummed through the verses he forgot, feet falling in time with the beat. Zion passed around them in an overwhelming, vivid blur, and he trusted Dixie’s hand to keep him from floating away when he stomped his feet down too hard.

There were bears at some point, eventually, three of them. The first one nearly gutted him as he stared at his machete—he’d drawn it left-handed, but wasn’t sure how. His right arm had been a little funny since they left the Fort, torn up by Vulpes’ ripper, but he’d never tried to—

_”Marius! What the heck!?”_

Oops. He backstepped, trying to figure out his position, his companions’ and the bears’. Then Dixie wouldn’t be upset. He felt a little guilty about that.

Marius wanted to stop and tell him again how much he wanted him to be happy, but he was swinging at the flaming yao guai that had appeared before him.

He probably dreamed the rest, it felt to soft-edged and far away. Dreamed, as he lay on the floor of a cave, cool and warm at the same time, working his fingers through—through—

He made a distressed noise, and Dixie—god, _Dixie,_ of course he would come save him, he loved him—was leaning over him, asking what was wrong.

 _I've been wrapped up by a spider and it's going to come eat me,_ he wanted to say, arms bound to his sides with the web, trying to get a grip and pull it apart. He managed a sort of whine, and said, “I’m…spiders…”

Dixie made an utterly fascinating face, lips pressed very thin but very wide. “You sure are spiders,” he said, voice choked. Marius moaned and started wiggling against his bonds—he didn’t _want_ to be spiders!—and Dixie started stroking at his hair. That felt better.

He blinked and an eternity passed. “Do night stalkers turn into coyotes when they shed their skin?” Marius had rolled off the rug under him, and the cool cave floor felt good on his cheek. Much better than the way the flicker of firelight was hitting his eyes, and he shut them tightly. “They’re…in the same ecological niche. It doesn’t…make sense. That they are. Unless. They’re the same…same animal.”

“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said all day, and it’s still crazy,” Dixie said. He had his sketchbook out, and Marius could feel the charcoal scrape across his brain as he drew. “Go back to sleep.”

“No,” Marius said, mulish. Dixie made a choking noise. “What am I doing here?”

“Waiting for the drugs to wear off,” Dixie said, voice quaking with suppressed laughter. “You were asleep a while.”

“Oh.” That… almost sounded right. He felt kind of sick. “Why did I do drugs?”

“Search me.”

“Arms…” Marius rolled in place a little, still tangled up in something.

He almost-coughed again. “Go back to sleep, Marius.”

“Okay…”

The voices might have been part of the dream, might have been the spiders. But no, that was Dixie, saying, “Adopted,” in a tone of voice that made Marius open his eyes.

“He still mourns a tribe, one the Sorrows knew,” Waking Cloud said, voice low. They sat at the fire, their backs to him. “Many Walker bands passed through Zion, years ago. I remember them as a young woman, chanting as they went, the whole tribe moving on the same footsteps. But starting…twenty years ago, perhaps, we saw no more of them.”

Marius nodded to himself, even as his heart grew heavy. Sounded right.

“The Sorrows counted them as friends, so if they are gone, we can only offer their lost son a home, in Zion.”

“What else can you tell me about them?” Dixie asked.

The fire crackled in the silence. “He has not shared this tale with you?”

There was an even longer pause now, followed by Dixie’s voice, in that same tone, that… “No. I knew he remembered a few things, but he recalled that whole song; another language. But he never told me…anything.” His voice was husky with tears and confusion. “Why?”

 _Because it hurts too much._ Half-asleep, Marius couldn’t tell him that, but felt tears run from his eyes and onto the pillow tucked under his head. It hurt to hear him so upset, too.

“I think it is not for me to say,” Cloud said, gently. “If he keeps things from you, it is for a reason, na’ne. Give him time to find the words.”

“What if he never does? After everything…”

Marius drifted again, for some unknown stretch of time. He wanted to put a hand to his head when he woke next, but whatever was holding his arms was still there. Looking down, he had been rolled into a loosely woven blanket, with gaps big enough to poke his fingers through. With a fair bit of wriggling, he managed to get one arm up and free, and leaned on his elbow to look around.

The day came back in pieces—this was White Bird’s cave, who had… Had welcomed him? Something about tribes. A cave full of yao guai. Dixie and the Sorrows woman, Waking Cloud, and singing as he walked.

Looking over, Dixie was stretched out on another mat beside him. Head spinning, Marius lay back down, shuffling over to cuddle up against his back, throwing an arm over him. Maybe he’d feel better in the morning.

***

”We need scouts,” Daniel said, with little preamble. “To find where the White Legs are camping in Zion and clear the roads. Somewhere here, there’s bound to be a map of the Grand Staircase, probably in an old-world building. Teaching scripture has been one thing, but getting the tribals to let go of their superstitions has proven…” His mouth drew to one side, frustrated. “Challenging. I’ll need you to look for us.”

Damianus just nodded. Somewhere above, Waking Cloud was helping Marius with the last aftereffects of his vision quest, leaving him to negotiate with Daniel. Or try to—for a man who claimed he was here with compassion for the Sorrows, he had drawn a hard line when it came to the two of them. “How many people do you have to lead out of here?” he asked, looking up at the walls of the Narrows. “So we know which roads will be best to clear.”

“Waking Cloud will show you our route out,” Daniel said. “And only around two dozen Sorrows, we sent the children and non-combatants away three weeks ago, and… They met up with the New Canaanites heading east.”

There was that second of evasion in his voice, and Damianus didn’t let his curiosity show as he said, “Did they get away safely?”

“They were attacked by White Legs,” he said, and Damianus saw his shoulders draw up ever so slightly—apprehension. “But we expected it, and had enough Sorrows hunters to fend them off. None of the children were hurt. Why?”

Behind him, Damianus made out Marius and Waking Cloud picking their way down the path towards them. He only shrugged a little. “You just seem to have a lot of burdens, being in charge here.”

Daniel looked relieved. “Too right,” he agreed, turning to welcome the others.

“Enough to push them on other people,” Damianus heard Marius mutter, as he stepped into hearing, taking his place just off Damianus’ shoulder. He frowned up at him, and in the corner of his eye, saw Daniel scowl, even as Waking Cloud spoke with him. Damianus shifted slightly away—censure, as much as…

As remembering Marius speaking a language he had barely shared with him, and Waking Cloud insisting he was hiding things for a _reason._

“Well, if that’s set,” Daniel said, rubbing his hands together, and even had some sympathy in his eye as he went on. “I’m sorry circumstances have forced me to impose on you. But we all agree that this is the best course of action, given the alternatives. I understand you have some…history, with Joshua, and I think you know more than anyone where he’d lead these good people.”

Marius lifted his head, opening his mouth on something that promised to only dig them deeper. “Thank you,” Damianus said curtly, cutting them both off, and turned for the near end of the valley.

Lightly, her tone only a little chiding, Waking Cloud turned to Marius. “Do you start fights with everyone you meet?”

He hunched his shoulders and started, “Only if—” in the same breath that Damianus said, _”Yes.”_

Marius shot him a look, wry humor fading to a frown as Damianus didn’t return it. “There was another cave here, before we go,” he said, a slight question in his voice. “Where I thought we might…”

“A sacred place,” Cloud said, indicating a path up the slope. “One to reflect on, I think, before embarking on the Father’s work.”

She led them up, and Damianus asked, “The Father?”

“The Father in the Caves! The Holy Father who gave the Sorrows succor, and gave the New Canaanites His son. He was given to the world to save it, and he and the Holy Mother dwelt in the caverns of the mountains,” she said, scaling the sheer path without breaking a sweat. “You know Daniel is a missionary, yes? He works in the Father’s name, and so do we, leading the Sorrows in exodus from Zion. It would help us, to look upon this holy place and ask for His protection.”

Damianus did exchange a look with Marius then, something uncomfortable on both of their faces. “Would it be bad luck if we went in?” Marius asked, slowly.

“Why would you…?” Waking Cloud looked back at them, just peering over the feathers on her collar. “You would call holy wrath upon yourselves. I know young men have no fear, and think they are beyond harm, but you do not fully understand the Father to say such things.”

Damianus tried again. “Would it offend you if we went into it?”

The cave loomed up, the smeared handprints marking the wall before he even made out the entrance. Cloud paused outside it, frowning as she thought. “I know you do not believe what we believe,” she said at last. “But if it would turn you to a better path, yes, you may enter. So long as you disturb nothing—the spirit of the Father himself resides here, and to wake his anger will be your ending. Do not profane it.”

“We won’t,” Damianus said, leading the way in—and half wishing Marius would stay outside, wished he didn’t have to look at him, to see his face that felt a little more like a stranger’s now. The other half wanted the dark and quiet of the cave, the privacy to speak with him alone, to ask _why_ he had hidden things. To ask what he had found lacking in Damianus, that he wouldn’t just… Share.

Marius cleared his throat a little, echoing in the cave. “I think we have enough supplies right now anyway, we can leave whatever’s here.”

“Sure,” Damianus said. He took a breath, intending to say more, but let it out through his nose instead. There were traps enough to avoid, without further distractions. This cave was smaller, more a series of tunnels—and filled with tripwires and bear traps that were difficult to squeeze around. It gave way at last to a larger chamber, with the expected rough workbenches, but Damianus kept his eyes open for traps as they headed for the terminal, up on a raised platform.

There was a little living area set up here, a thick layer of dust over the whole of it. He left Marius cleaning off the terminal, picking up a helmet and gas mask that had been left on a bench. Brushing away the grime, he puzzled out the words _Forgive me, mama_ scrawled on the front of the helmet, felt the tally marks that had been scratched into the metal. Holding it between his hands, he stared at the green-lensed mask before abruptly setting it back down.

He didn’t know the man’s face, who had lived here, lived through things that Damianus would never himself endure—but had felt the same despair and loathing, the same guilt for living on when the ones who mattered had been left behind. He would never know what he looked like, and would maybe never learn his name. But the mask took up some space in his mind, an empty-eyed death’s head that didn’t feel right to associate with him.

That made Damianus wonder how people would remember _him,_ in his time.

“I’ve got it running,” Marius said quietly, beckoning him over. Damianus didn’t take his hand as he approached the bench, waiting for him to start. Marius didn’t seem to notice, fixed on the screen. “2096. I think we’re still in order,” he said as he tabbed through the menu. He paused before starting to read. “Or… Maybe we did miss one? ‘February 11: Fuckers killed all of the men’—I’m not sure who he’s talking about—’I think they would have taken the women alive…’”

Damianus read over his shoulder as much as he could as he went. He was a few lines behind, puzzling over the sick people from Vault 22 showing up and taking the Mexican settlers hostage, when Marius stopped reading. “Something wrong?” he asked, using the silence to catch up.

He reached the entry for February 14 at the same time Marius read it aloud, voice leaden. “’They ate them.’”

What followed was a tally, more than a diary; a cold accounting for the cannibals as the man sought vengeance. Damianus found himself looking at the mask again, staring out over the cavern as Marius read. He could imagine the words coming from behind it, impersonal, calculated, from a man who knew he had a duty to kill. Who was enacting justice, no matter how grim.

“’Taking as much food as I can drag with me and heading to cave south.’ Well, it’s nice to get a clue where he went, this time,” Marius said, stretching a little as he stepped away. “Explains a lot of the traps, too.”

Damianus nodded, replaying the words in his head. He shuddered. It was easy to stay alive when you had a purpose. _Easy_ to kill, when you felt it was justified. That, he knew well.

Marius had gone over to inspect the helmet, pausing as something caught his eye. “And what’s this?” Crouching down, he picked up a sort of heavy vest that had fallen behind a bench. “Looks like the same armor the NCR uses for their Rangers,” he said, wiping dust from the throat plate as he turned it over. “’USMC’… Don’t know that one. Vickers? Think that’s his name?”

“Maybe,” Damianus said. “He was civilian, though, as far as we know. Might be from the National Guard base he mentioned.”

“Yeah,” Marius said, still examining it. “It’s in good shape.”

“We said we wouldn’t take anything.” Damianus folded his arms, expecting an argument when he hesitated.

But while it took a moment for Marius to nod, and reluctantly lay it back down, all he said was, “We did promise.”

He led the way out, feeling Marius’ eyes on his back, and hunched his shoulders against it. He’d never promised anything to Damianus, in so many words. Not honesty, or disclosure. The thought ate at him, quenched the urge to turn and demand it—demand to know what made Marius keep things from him, made him distrust him with his past even as Damianus had poured his own out to him.

To demand to know what he had done wrong.

Before he could work up the nerve, he felt a touch on his shoulder. “We’ll find it,” Marius said, with an encouraging, if forced, smile. “Where he went. We’ll find out what happened to him.”

Damianus put his head back down and walked faster, and heard Marius’ footsteps falter behind him.

***

”I have good news, and bad,” Waking Cloud said as she led them into the larger valley. “The good, that we have all proven ourselves against Zion’s yao guai. The bad… We may be facing many of them.”

“Well, I don’t really remember my first fight with them,” Marius said, trying to stay on the narrow river bank rather than soak his boots again. “So sounds like you guys are the experts.”

Dixie said nothing as he trudged ahead, shading his eyes a little at the late afternoon sun. Marius frowned at his back, watching Waking Cloud for any indication of what was wrong. She didn’t seem to notice, head up to take in the rich blue of the sky and birds flitting by overhead. He tried not to sigh as he followed, keeping his eyes up to watch for White Leg scouts as they made their way south.

Waking Cloud was less of a conversationalist than Chalk had been, more alert to their surroundings, only speaking in a murmur when she pointed to tracks—both White Leg and animal—and directed them up to lesser-used paths in the rocks. At one point, they passed overhead of a trio of White Leg fighters who had tucked themselves behind a razor-thin pass, one that would have turned into a meat grinder, if they had wandered through unaware.

Even with the threats around them, Marius still found himself reaching occasionally for Dixie’s hand, when the terrain allowed them to walk side by side. But he kept ignoring it, or stepping away, taking a path that put distance between them. Biting back his frustration, he was silent until they hunkered across from each other in an alcove of stone, as Cloud gestured for them to stay put. Marius waited for her footsteps to fade before asking, “Are you feeling alright?”

“Fine,” Dixie said, with his stony expression on—the one he used when he didn’t want to talk.

Marius tried not to scowl back at him, racking his brain. Had he said something stupid, while he was drugged? He seemed to recall a lot of stupid things, but nothing that should set Dixie off like this. “Did…something happen?” he hazarded.

“No.” And that was all, as he turned to stare into the distance.

Marius realized he was clenching his teeth, promising to give himself a headache later, and he took a sip from his canteen to distract himself. With a feeling like he was treading on a viper’s nest, he said with as much gentleness as he could muster, “I thought we talked about you just… Telling me what’s on your mind, instead of bottling it up.”

And had to physically recoil as Dixie snapped, “That’s rich coming from you, right now.”

“Dixie, what the f—”

He bit down on it, not hearing Waking Cloud until she was nearly on top of their hiding place. “I think we are safe to approach. No creatures linger outside.” She glanced from Dixie back to Marius, and he was suddenly very annoyed with the perceptive look on her face. “The yao guai cave is a narrow one, or so I have been told. It may be safer if fewer of us enter.”

“What, to fight all of them?” Marius said, when Dixie volunteered nothing.

“As I said, we may not need to fight,” Waking Cloud said, reaching into a bag at her hip. “Daniel has given me some of the New Canaanite’s fire-clay. His thought was to collapse the cavern atop them, rather than hunt every one of the animals. I agree. It pains me to take so many at once, but their numbers will recover.” She reached out, handing a brick of C-4 to Marius. “I have watched you both move, and you are lighter on your feet. Place them in weak points around the entrance, and—”

She paused, Marius shaking his head at her. “If it’s already full of them, Dixie should go in. He’s better with animals.”

Cloud raised her eyebrows, looking to Dixie. He shrugged. “Sure, I don’t mind getting sent off to get eaten. It’s fine,” he insisted, talking over Marius as he tried to explain, snatching the explosive away from him. “I’m just glad you told me that much.”

He and Waking Cloud let him get ahead, moving low as they approached the yao guai den. The pair of them tucked themselves up behind a fallen pine as Dixie crept forward, alone. Marius’ heart clenched as what he thought was a boulder beside the entrance twitched an ear, the bear resettling its head as he passed it—but didn’t react further as Dixie passed into the shadow of the cave mouth.

“He does have a way of carrying himself,” Cloud mused, watching him go. “Not prey, and not threat.”

“I didn’t think you’d be sending him in alone,” Marius said, fighting not to sound judgmental.

She smiled a little, sitting back on her heels. “Of all the dens, this is safest. The creatures come here to sleep away large meals—he will only find the fattest, laziest yao guai here. If many of them,” she added, to Marius’ discomfort. “Have faith. In him, if not the Father’s protection. He seems a capable young man.”

“He is,” Marius said, keeping his voice down. He swallowed hard before asking, “Have you talked to him?”

“I have,” Cloud said, leaning on the fallen tree as she watched the sleeping yao guai.

***

Damianus stuck the explosive firmly to the wall, not bothering to check his handiwork. He had to trust that wherever he put them was good enough; he was hardly a geologist, to know how to collapse a cave efficiently. It would have to do.

Even with the sound of low, rumbling breaths all around him, he kept walking at a steady pace. Hesitating for even a moment—moving with anything less than purpose—was a death sentence, marked him as some rodent that had wandered into the predators’ lair. He almost snorted at himself. More than anything, it reminded him of walking through a Legion camp. Only, he thought, stepping carefully over the outstretched paws of a sleeping animal, each claw longer than his finger, the inhabitants were better company.

The light here was uncertain, the glowing fungus they’d found throughout Zion growing in clumps, but he didn’t dare turn on his Pip-boy light. Not with the rank smell of yao guai all around him, the stench of old meat and worse nearly making him gag. Squinting into the dark, he felt at the wall, and found it dry enough for a brick of the explosive to stick. He molded it to the stone, making sure the… Electronic part? Antenna? Whatever it was called, was still firmly in place.

Marius would know. But then, there were a lot of things Marius knew that he hadn’t told him. Damianus sighed through his nose rather than pursue the thought further, _here_ of all places. 

Turning a corner, he saw the heaped, scabby skin of one of the bears curled up in an alcove—an animal twice the size of any he’d yet seen in Zion. He did hesitate there, before backing away as quietly as his leg brace would allow. Closer to the entrance, Waking Cloud had said. He didn’t mind heading back, even in the slightest.

Behind him, he heard the bear take a snorting breath as it woke, testing the air. He forced himself not to bolt, looking for one last place to set the explosive.

***

“Why is he upset with me?”

It took a moment for her to turn to him, but her voice was mild. “You have asked him?”

“Of course I have, but he won’t…” Marius threw his hands up in a shrug. “He’s just making me _guess.”_

“Ah,” she said, with no little sympathy. “He is a sensitive soul in his way. Or, this is my impression. He reminds me of my husband, in truth, only quick to take offense if he thinks someone is being dishonest.”

“Oh,” Marius said, trying to mesh that with his mental image of Dixie. Unfortunately, it stuck. “You’re married?” he asked, trying to show polite interest.

“Yes. To a fine man,” she said, smiling fondly as she touched the squares of turquoise on her necklace. “We have three children, who I miss each day, but take comfort in knowing he has taken them to safety.” Her hand fell as she glanced back at the cave, but her smile stayed in place. “We have had our arguments, as any pair do, but find we have made ourselves stronger as two because of it.”

“Oh,” he said again, trying not to sound too defeated. “So you’re not going to tell me what he said to you.”

Waking Cloud shook her head. “It would not be my place. This is an obstacle for you to overcome together.”

“Does it have anything to do with me being adopted by the Sorrows?” Marius asked. Cloud just gave him a level look. “Well, then I’ll ask for me—Why did you accept me, but not him?”

“It was White Bird’s decision, which are not always…” She pursed her lips, as if finding the right word. “They make sense to him, and as our shaman, we do not question. But Dixie may as well be Sorrows, too. By marriage.” She only grinned as Marius flushed. “Speak with him, openly. Show him your heart, young cousin, and the honesty in it, and he will have no choice but to respond in kind.”

***

If he survived, he might just kill Marius for volunteering him.

The giant yao guai was following him, snuffling along at his footsteps. In no great hurry, apparently; it seemed to think that anything stupid enough to wander into its den was too stupid to get itself out. Cursing under his breath, he stuck the last charge to the cave wall and walked—quickly, but not running, not making himself a target—down the branch in the tunnel that would, hopefully, loop back to the entrance.

The echoes changed ahead, the quality of the air. Damianus nearly choked as he stepped into the cavern, exposed, counting no less than three animals slumbering in odd corners. He made his way as quickly across as he could, the largest bear starting to grumble behind him, in the tunnel. Beside him, another raised its head, fleshy nose working as it growled back.

He let out a faint “Fffffff—” as he went, stepping faster. No amount of tactful creeping would keep him safe now. _”Frick,”_ he finally hissed, hearing one of the animals roar in earnest.

He broke into a run, finally, the faint glimmer of daylight painting the stones ahead.

He was going to _kill_ Marius.

***

“I mean, I’d like if it were that easy,” Marius said, trying not to sound too surly. “But he’s—”

_”Blow the charges!”_

They both leapt to their feet at the shout, Dixie sprinting at top speed from the cave. He waved his arms as he shouted, “Now! Detonate them!”

Marius heard the yao guai behind him, a guttural roar cut short as Waking Cloud pulled the trigger on the detonator. Dixie threw himself down as the first _crack_ echoed out of the chamber, followed fast by the deafening rumble and clatter of a landslide within the mountain. Shrapnel exploded from the entrance, and the stones forming it buckled, giving way under the force of the blast.

The yao guai outside the cave had bolted at the sound, leaving Dixie curled up in the weeds outside. Marius rushed over to him, ears still ringing. “Are you alright?” he half-shouted, kneeling beside him to rest a hand on his back. “Did any of the shrapnel get you?”

“I’m alright,” Dixie said, lifting his head. Or might have said; it was still hard to hear as the stones settled behind them. “I had one on me.”

“You sure don’t now,” Marius said, looking back at the cliff. Anything caught in there would never see the light of day again.

“This was… Effective,” Waking Cloud said, still giving the detonator an alarmed look. Very carefully, she put it away in her pouch. “I do not think the yao guai will be a problem, in the future.”

Dixie stood, ignoring Marius’ offer to help. He stood on his own instead, brushing himself off, not looking at Dixie as he turned to Waking Cloud. “What else did Daniel ask of us?”

“I think we have done enough this day,” she said, clasping her hands. Marius glanced up—they had hours of daylight left. He looked to Waking Cloud to suggest they get done what they could, but there was a gleam in her eye that made him nervous. “You two were camping in the fisher’s lodge, yes? It is near, and you should rest. Many things were achieved today.”

“O…kay,” Dixie said, giving Marius a sidelong look. He frowned back at it, and Dixie looked away. “We might as well.”

“Will you be—” Marius started, falling in beside Waking Cloud.

“I will stay with the Sorrows tending our burial grounds,” she said firmly. “And you two may have time alone.”

“Ah,” was all Marius could manage, staring at Dixie’s back.

***

A couple mantises had wandered into the fishing lodge while they were away, through broken boards on one of the windows. Marius rummaged behind the bar as Dixie butchered them, sticking the claws in the barely-running fridge and dragging the bodies to the cliff. He kept his head down when he came back, wedging part of a shelf into the window frame, a rough but secure fix.

He fidgeted with it longer than necessary, getting the edges as square as he could. Behind him, Dixie was… Doing nothing. Just standing, maybe, waiting for him. Taking a deep breath, Marius turned to face him, finding him slouched on the pool table with his face turned away. He rolled one of the balls under his hand, studiously not noticing him.

A spiteful part of Marius wanted to play the same game, ignoring the problem until… Until they were at each other’s throats, probably. Snapping at each other over nothing, as they had in the past. Or snapping at each other over _something,_ something Marius couldn’t put his finger on and just wanted Dixie to tell him what the hell was wrong.

He tried not to sigh too loudly—tried not to feel like he was admitting defeat—as he asked, “Why are you mad at me?”

Dixie’s jaw clenched a moment, before he spat, “Why should I tell _you_ anything?”

“Because we’re—” Marius waved his hands, already frustrated, and wiped a hand down his face. “Is this… about the Sorrows adopting me, but not you?”

 _”Of course_ that’s not it!” Dixie said, straightening, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the ball as he thumped his other hand to his chest to punctuate his words. “Maybe it’s something to do with you _hiding_ things from me, even after all we’ve been through! Just _maybe_ it’s that after _months_ of trying to open my heart to you, I find you’ve never done the same to me? And it’s the first thing you tell a bunch of strangers.”

“I—” Marius’ mouth was actually hanging open. “I never hid anything from you, what—”

“You remember—” Dixie shook his head, as if trying to shake the right words out of it, and pushed the ball away, across the table. “Where you came from. Your people. Your _tribe_. And after everything I told _you—”_

“I never hid any of that from you!” Marius put his hands on the pool table, and Dixie drew away. “I told you I still remembered… Some things. Pieces. I wasn’t _hiding—”_

“And still _so much_ more than I ever thought. A lot more than bits and pieces. And you didn’t tell me any of it,” Dixie said, “when I tried so hard to give you that chance. What is so wrong with me, that you don’t trust me?”

“I do—” he started, leaning over the table. Dixie shuffled a step further back, and Marius froze. He watched him for a moment, remembering him in the entrance to the cave, the day they had arrived, and reached behind him to pull a chair away from the wall. “I do trust you,” he said, sitting with his arms folded. “I don’t know where the hell you got the idea that I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here otherwise. But what do either of us get out of bringing that up? Other than hurting me? They’re all dead and nothing will ever change that.”

“You think it didn’t hurt me, to lose as many people as I have?” There were tears in Dixie’s eyes, and Marius looked away. Dixie made a disgusted noise as he stalked past the bar and to the sitting area, leaning on the back of the couch.

Marius shot a look after him, unclenching his teeth to say, “This was family. Different than what you had with Ridley.”

“Erasmus, Marcellus, Sunsetter, Red River, Vito, Felix, Ferris, Iulianus, and Constans,” Dixie said harshly, fists clenched so hard they shook. “My contubernia. My _brothers.”_

“That’s not…” Marius fought not to touch his face again, show his frustration—or how his stomach sank. “I mean—”

“They were the most important men in my life before I met you. I lost them, but I still shared them with you. You can't understand what I've lost but I've still given it to you in whole because I want you to have everything I have to give." He tried to lean back on the couch again, but his hand slipped, and he let himself slide down the back of it to the floor. “What did I do, that you won’t trust me with the same?”

Marius watched him a moment, Dixie with his head in his hands to avoid his gaze. He didn’t look at Dixie as he stood, kept his eyes on the floor as he went to sit beside him. “You have done nothing wrong,” he said again, firmly. “But you are not entitled to make me talk about one of the few things left that gives me fucking nightmares. To make me talk about losing my tribe.”

He saw him recoil from the corner of his eye. “That isn’t what I want to know about,” he said, almost hurt.

Marius was already shaking his head. “I can’t pick and choose what I remember. And that’s what it always comes back to.” His voice was thicker than he liked, and he kept his face as steady as he could, fighting it. “That part of my life ended. Everyone I knew, gone. If I think about it… I just end up living there, in the worst of it.”

Neither of them looked at each other, slumped on the floor. “But why _not_ talk about it?” Dixie asked, almost whispering. “Hand the pain to someone else. Get rid of it.”

Marius tried not to sigh. There _was_ no getting rid of it, how could he not— “Why are you so insistent on this?” he managed, heat rising in it.

“Because I love you.”

Marius kept his eyes on the floor. He opened his mouth to say it back, but the words withered on his tongue as Dixie grabbed the edge of his shirt to wipe at his face. Turning away, he dried his own eyes on his hand, holding his breath rather than sob. It came out in a rush as he tried to breathe, and he saw Dixie look over, as though expecting him to speak.

But his throat had seized, and the words were… Wrong, with tears in both their eyes, and what felt like a canyon between them. It felt like a pitiful, last-ditch thing to say, now; and every time he said it after, would bring him right back here.

He just put his head in his hands, miserable, his chest aching as he tried to breathe steadily. Beside him, Dixie gave a sort of snort. “We were supposed to be getting away from the Legion but it just followed us, didn't it? In the things it did to you and to me.”

“Yeah,” Marius said, voice rough. He held out his hand, and Dixie took it without hesitation, winding his fingers through his. “And before that… I just wanted to forget everything they took. Like it might make things easier. You… You just wanted to hold on to every scrap you could. You had so little.” He grimaced at himself, a memory surfacing. “I told you once before, too, that you wouldn’t understand, because you hadn’t lost a family like I had. That was wrong. In…a lot of ways.”

Dixie pulled his hand away. "While you were still being held by your mother I was already being held by the throat. Don't you tell me my loss was smaller just because I didn't know its name."

Marius tried to hide his face as he crumbled—but reached for him instead, turning to face Dixie as he slid closer. Dixie responded in kind, and Marius cupped his face and rested his forehead on his. He felt Dixie’s hands on his hair and his shoulders, restless, soothing touch as they sat, saying nothing as they wept.

They sat like that a long while, but eventually broke away to look after a modest meal. Before long, they were stretched out on the bedding by the fire. Face to face, they whispered apologies and explanations, even as their hands wandered, gently, keeping to comforting touch. They drifted to sleep like that, Marius with Dixie’s head tucked up under his chin, feeling… Calmer. Sadder and closer, all at once.

Like maybe there was some solace to be found, in time.

Trying not to wake him, Marius kissed his hair before pulling him tighter, against the cold of the night.


	4. Chapter 4

Waking Cloud, unlike Chalk, wasn’t waiting outside for them the next morning. Worried, Damianus indicated for Marius to sweep wide around the building, hoping to find her—and in one piece. They met on the far side with a shrug, and Marius leaned closer to murmur, “Could she have gotten held up?”

“Maybe. One woman against all the White Leg scouts,” Damianus said, still scanning the valley around them. “Even if she was camping nearby, that’s enough space to get caught in.”

“Should we make our way to the burial grounds, see if—”

“Katu veo.” Waking Cloud’s voice wasn’t very loud, but close enough that they both jumped. The corners of her eyes crinkled as she grinned at them, approaching from the shadow of the lodge. “Per no veo me, hm? Zion is no place to let your guard down, friends.”

“We’re aware,” Damianus said, as Marius craned to see where she had come from. “Were you waiting for us?”

“No, I only just arrived,” she said. “I have scouted our next mission: the White Legs are setting traps on bridges on our escape route. They have only spoiled one so far, but must be stopped before they turn all the roads against us.” She looked between him and Marius, a little appraisingly. “The three of us are working together, no?”

“Of course,” Marius said, reaching to just touch Damianus’ arm as they started walking. Cloud smiled again at the gesture, hiding it as she took the lead. Marius went on, “I’ve been thinking a little, too. We know this was all a Legion setup, but I think I know who was responsible for arming the White Legs and setting them on Canaan.”

“Does it make a difference, which man set this in motion?” Waking Cloud said, keeping her eyes on the road ahead. “The White Legs are here, and want for blood, and we must do all we can to prevent it.”

“True,” Marius said, giving Damianus a hand up as they followed her to a higher trail. “But if it’s the man I’m thinking of and he’s still here to coordinate things, we could be in bigger trouble than we know.”

“Nothing we can’t handle,” Damianus said. They wove through the cover of standing stones, keeping their voices low to prevent an echo. “I never actually met many other Frumentarii. Who do you think it was?”

“Ulysses,” Marius said. Damianus could only shrug, and Marius frowned, thinking. “One of the old guard, as Frumentarii go. Probably been in the Legion since they were just a handful of tribes around the Grand Canyon.”

Damianus tried to recall the dates Marius had told him, not quite asking as he said, “Makes him old, for a Legionary.”

“With good reason,” Marius said. “Good at gaining a tribe’s trust, even better at not getting killed. He was in on a lot of high-level secrets, I can see him knowing about Graham being alive, and getting sent to deal with it.”

Waking Cloud gestured for them to pause as they left the standing stones, crouching to rest with her back on a boulder. “I was told you knew of the men who trained the White Legs,” she said, face sober. “Why did you serve them for so long, who had done such evil?”

“We were never given a choice,” Damianus said, looking out at the valley ahead the day was crisp, so early, and promising to be clear and warm. Cloud pointed to their path, winding along a cliff and through the morning shadow. “But we’re fixing as much as we can, in Zion, since Graham won’t. Not in a way that matters”

“That is not your burden to carry,” she said, quietly.

Damianus watched his feet a moment before turning to Marius. He gave him a worried look before going on. “Ulysses was sent north last year, without a lot of explanation, and no backup—not that he needed it. But it was unusually quiet, and I can’t see any other reason to send someone of his caliber to Utah,” he said, and fussed briefly at his ponytail. “Their hair, too. He was growing his in a tribal style, and it looks a lot like what the White Legs are wearing now. I could see them mimicking a warrior like him, they’re superstitious enough.”

“How did he get away with it?” Damianus asked, glad to change the tenor of the conversation. “Last I checked, you got crucified for playing tribal again.”

“Who was going to argue with him?” Marius said, shrugging. “It was part of his cover as a courier, and I think he was getting his orders directly from Caesar—who you’ll remember was perfectly happy to break his own rules, if it suited him.

“But Ulysses never returned to the Legion, that I know of,” Marius went on. “There’s a slim chance he died out here, but more likely, he’s either still pulling strings or had some other duty to pursue.”

“I don’t care for either of those options,” Damianus said. “But it fits, for the little I know of him, everything happening here is Legion strategy to the letter. And now that the White Legs have a foothold in Zion, they’ll move up to the terror tactics—taking hostages, staking out bodies. The escape routes they started trapping are clever, I can see him teaching them to use those.” He paused a moment, thinking, as he turned to Waking Cloud. “The Sorrows guarding your burial grounds—tell them to keep a double watch. They’ll do everything they can to demoralize your people, and desecrating holy sites like that will be a priority.”

She had paused in the shade of a mesquite tree, the serious look on her face given over to honest distress. “You are such young men, to know such terrible ways of war,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Even Salt Upon Wounds, who leads the White Legs, is a man with their way of life to call upon. I thought perhaps he was evil in himself, to nail the bodies of the Canaanites to the cliffs in triumph… But did this Ulysses teach him so? And you were taught the same?”

“That’s a little brutal for Ulysses,” Marius said, gone ashen at the thought. “But it would serve his purpose.”

“I have never had to do something that…” A strong enough word didn’t come, and Damianus just had to shrug. “But yes, that’s what we were taught. A frightened enemy is a weak one. And even if the Legion does prefer to charge in head-first, especially under Lanius, there are enough of us who know wars are won or lost in subterfuge.”

Waking Cloud nodded, sadly. “Zion used to be a healing place. I hope the grace of the Father will find you, to ease your minds after leaving such things behind.”

“It’s not exactly restful at the moment,” Marius said. He took a sweep of the low area ahead of them, and began to clamber down the rock face.

Cloud shrugged. “It may be, again, and I would be pleased for it to be so.”

She helped Damianus begin his descent, Marius reaching up to take his hand as he eased himself down. He looked up long enough to ask, “I thought we were evacuating?”

Dropping down beside them, she tipped her head. “Yes. That…is our goal.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Marius said.

Damianus couldn’t help but think of how Daniel had spoken of them, _ignorant_. Called their religions superstitions. He licked his lips before asking, “Has Daniel done anything for you, other than teach you _his_ ways?”

“He has brought us the good news,” Waking Cloud said, in a tone that indicated the words meant something he didn’t grasp. “The teachings of the New Canaanites are shelter in the storm, food in times of hunger, warmth and light in the cold and darkness. They have brought us closer to the Father than the Sorrows have ever been. He has taught practical things as well,” she said, pulling at the wrap at her hips. Damianus almost looked away out of reflex, but the scar between her hipbones was just under the edge of it.

“I was already a midwife to the Sorrows—sounds ill-omened, no?—when he came to us, and I bore my third child to a hard birth. The River nearly carried my water to the Father, and my child's with it. But Daniel knew the ways of New Canaan’s medicine, and saved both our lives. He has taught us much, and healed many ills we knew not how to treat. He would not bring harm to us.”

“But do you _want_ to leave Zion?” Marius asked, looking at her again as she smoothed her clothes back in place.

Cloud’s smile of reminiscence faded. “It is the best way. The Sorrows will mourn Zion. What we would mourn more is losing the way of peace. The Father in the Caves told us to strike our enemies with righteous anger, and we would—but Joshua Graham would twist it and take it from us. He would make our vengeance his, and set us on a dark road. For a man of faith, he has forgotten that the scripture teaches compassion, as well.” She looked up at them, a little warmth coming back to her eyes. “But in time, even the White Legs will leave Zion, for they do not know how to use what it generously provides. Perhaps this place will become a haven once again, to those who need.”

“I hope it does,” Damianus said, quietly. He spotted movement ahead on the road, and crouched in the shadow with Waking Cloud. “Are those our sappers?” She narrowed her eyes at him, and he added, “The ones setting traps.”

“Ah, me veo. Yes, I think so,” she said. Slipping the yao guai gauntlet from her back, she fixed her hand inside before pressing her palms together. “I do not relish this killing, but it is for those who cannot fight. We shall do the Father’s work today.”

***

Marius hung back as the others found cover in the sappers’ path, keeping to cover with his rifle, swallowing down how much he hated sending Dixie ahead, into danger, while he hung back in safety. He watched him crouch against a boulder, the red of his shirt blending into it at the distance. Teeth clenched, Marius checked the safety on his gun again, repeating to himself that he had to be the one to keep harm from reaching him.

Even if it made his stomach sink, sighting on a White Leg with a bear trap over his shoulder, unaware of his presence. He was looking incuriously out at the valley, over Marius’ sights, bored and tired with his task as he neared the ambush point. Terror hit Marius with an almost physical force, that he was going to pull a trigger and send a bullet to tear a stranger’s skull apart, for no better reason than the White Legs had been ordered here and Marius wanted to leave—

—he knew how much he feared it, that death could find him anywhere, did this man—?

Crouched on a higher ledge beside the mesquite tree, he had to lean against the trunk, lowering the barrel of his gun as he shook. He took a quick, hitching breath, another, not letting them out in case he made a noise.

He had seen too many people die. Killed too many, for no fucking good reason.

And he would have to keep doing it, if it meant keeping Dixie safe.

Leaning out from cover, he fumbled at the carbine’s selector switch, barely bracing the weapon before firing. The burst was deliberately high, five rounds ripping over the White Legs’ heads. They ducked, tensed, trying to orient on where the shot had come from rather than the stones around them—giving Dixie and Waking Cloud a chance to spring from cover. Marius fired another burst, well clear of them, but keeping the four White Legs under pressure as Dixie kicked the first of them off his machete, already focusing on on the next.

With an extra chill of fear, he realized he had never seen Waking Cloud fight—a midwife, not a warrior. He tried to get a bead on the sapper swinging a hatchet at her, but she caught the blow, twisting the man’s wrist. Using the momentum to rip the weapon away, her yao guai gauntlet drove towards his gut. He looked away from the rest, but caught a glimpse of her face, and the resolute fury in it.

The sappers weren’t armed with guns, and the skirmish was over nearly as soon as it began. Smoothing his hair back, Marius dropped down from his hiding place, moving up to check on the others. Dixie was already looking back at him, apparently unhurt, and Marius tried to force the shakes out of his hand as he laid it on his back, giving him a questioning look. Dixie gave him a little nod in return—he was fine—but his eyes narrowed a little as he looked at Marius, who turned to Waking Cloud rather than acknowledge it. “You’re alright?”

“Yes, we caught them by surprise,” she said, blowing out one last breath of exertion and giving him a grim smile. “We must check the bridge, and perhaps another further on, just to be—”

She trailed off, and the three of them turned to the path the White Legs had come from. Running footsteps were beating the path, and before they could retreat, another tribal had crested a short rise, taking in the scene at a glance. “Shih fin deh baika-ker!” she shouted, raising a fire ax as she charged. “Nikkumpa!”

More were behind her, some dozen White Legs—ones with heavier armor of hides and scrap metal, and with weapons that had Marius turning to run. But someone rushed past, and he dug in his feet, swearing as Dixie lunged to meet the charge, putting himself between Marius and the one with the ax. His machete bit into the haft of it as he blocked the blow, and Marius fired past him, thinking of nothing more than the next strike sinking into his exposed chest—

The next minute or so was all muscle memory and near-panic as they backed away from the war band to put their backs to the cliff, the three of them fighting for their lives. Marius’ rifle clicked empty one last time, and he patted his pocket to find no more magazines prepped, and in the same motion slung it to his back and drew his machete. Dixie glanced at him just long enough to step aside, letting him take up position beside him.

Trapped against the cliff, they had been backed into a fold of the stone, keeping their attackers from flanking them—their only saving grace. Marius fought mechanically, waiting for the moment one of their storm-drummers would step up and finish them off with nowhere to run, or a grenade would roll to their feet. But the White Legs with blades and gauntlets had pushed their way forward, forcing them into a deadly pattern of thrust and parry as Marius felt himself start to tire.

Beside him, a warrior’s ragged machete raked at Dixie’s leg, little more than a graze—but Waking Cloud saw it land, blocking her attacker as she shouted, “They poison their blades! The antidote—”

But Dixie had already dropped back, reaching at his belt for something. Marius stepped in to take his place, the White Leg too fixated on Dixie to see him rush in. A second later, the empty clay bottle of antivenom flew past him, smashing into the face of the next man in the crush, leaving a splatter of bloody-looking medicine.

Marius’ shoulders burned, the war band with a seemingly endless number of men, and the three of them with nowhere to run. He forced himself to keep moving, his next opponent slow to bring her guard up against a blade from her wrong side, and paying dearly for it. The one behind her hesitated, and Marius couldn’t bring himself to take another step closer, or even look up at the sound of more war cries behind them. It was either Dead Horse reinforcements, or more White Legs.

A hand groped for his shoulder, and Marius glanced over at Dixie. He was shaking his head, trembling as he wiped at an eye with his wrist, the rest of his hand covered in blood. “I can’t see,” he said, voice hoarse. “The poison—”

The cries from the bridge had pitched up as the newcomers hit the back of the White Leg group—Dead Horses, as far as Marius could tell, and he made a start towards one last, indecisive White Leg, who bolted at the threat. “What’s wrong?” he said, dropping his machete to take Dixie’s face between his hands. He seemed uninjured, but his pupils were huge, the gray just a ring around the black. His grip was weak as he held on to Marius’ arm, swaying on his feet. Marius could hardly look away from him as he shouted, “Waking Cloud? He took an antidote, but he’s still—”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Waking Cloud freeze, lowering a bottle from her own lips. “Merd,” she hissed, giving it a shake before tossing it aside. “Was it made from datura?”

“The antidote? No, nightstalker blood—” Marius trailed off, helping Dixie sit against the rock wall.

“I know that not. And their blood knows nothing of datura,” she said, ripping a scrap of cloth from one of their fallen enemies and packing it to a cut on her forearm. Marius helped her tie it into place, then lever the body over. “Check the bodies. White Legs carry extra doses, in case of accidents.”

He nodded, only glancing back at Dixie, who was still touching his face as he shook, slumped over. Marius nearly fell as he reached for the next corpse, patting down pockets and turning out pouches tied to the belt. Empty, and he lurched to the next, feet heavy as he tried to step over the bodies. He fought to focus on his task instead of the killing field around them, narrowing his world to what was in contact with his hands, and the sound of Dixie behind him, breathing harshly.

What if he died here, when Marius had never even told him—?

The next body had a broken clay bottle under it, the reeking, greenish liquid inside smeared on the stones. He had to move further from Dixie to reach the next, and he couldn’t help but pause, the White Leg woman’s eyes staring unseeing at the sky, throat ripped out by a machete—

“Cousin! Here!”

He barely caught the bottle Waking Cloud threw him, nearly fell again as he rushed back to Dixie’s side. Holding the bottle to his lips, he clung to Marius as he helped him drink, grimacing at the taste. Cloud came to sit beside them on a rock as Marius set the bottle aside, holding Dixie’s head to his chest as he put pressure on the wound in his leg. “Will he be…?”

“Let the medicine work,” she said, clearly as tired as he. “He is not too far gone, I think. None of ours have taught you to make the antidote? No? Pa-re, I thought Daniel might, or even that Dead Horses scout.”

“We didn’t think to ask,” Marius said, still absently stroking Dixie’s hair as he held him tight. He let terror give way to annoyance, a welcome change. “This has all been one stupid decision after another.”

She frowned, if wearily, before looking toward the bridge. Marius had almost tuned out the sound of combat, and the lack of it left a ringing void in the air. Dead Horse warriors were crossing the bridge towards them, looking over the bodies as they talked in their own language, and one waved as he shouted a question. Waking Cloud raised a hand and called back in the same tongue; a reassurance, as far as Marius could tell.

“Are we safe?” Dixie asked. He was still slumped in his arms, but at least had stopped shaking.

“A Dead Horses war band got the rest of them,” Marius said, checking if he was still bleeding. “Let me get a stimpak for that. Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” he said, but could barely sit up as Marius reached around for the side pocket on his pack. He tried to keep his eyes off the Dead Horses, clearing the bodies from the path, but a figure among them caught his eye, shoulders drawing up defensively.

Marius couldn’t help but keep a piece of his attention on Graham, even as he pretended to ignore him. He approached, regardless, and Marius looked up at him under his brow as he set the used stimpak aside, a little pointedly. His stomach turned, even as he said, “What do you want, Legate?”

He thought he caught the faintest movement of his teeth clenching before Graham said, with distinct irritation, “Daniel has put you to more tasks. What is your progress with them?”

“I don’t report to—”

“We have collapsed the yao guai cave, and now seen to the White Leg sappers,” Waking Cloud said, standing. Marius sat back on his heels more firmly, and Dixie grabbed at his arm, a warning, as Cloud filled Graham in.

“Some progress, at least,” he said when she was done. “But whatever else he has asked of you must be completed as soon as possible. The White Legs aren’t content with sending mere scouts into Zion anymore. We have reports of another war party this size approaching the valley. I will not stand by and wait for them to come after the Sorrows, and we must be ready to take the fight to them.” From the corner of his eye, Marius saw him look pointedly at Dixie. “Deaths could have been prevented, had we acted by now.”

Dixie was squeezing his arm again, and Waking Cloud had a hand raised out of Graham’s sight, a warning, as Marius looked Graham dead in the eye and said, “You made this mess, don’t you dare give me orders to fix it. And if you try and use him against me, we’ll see just where the fight gets taken.”

“You’ll place one man’s life over everyone in Zion?” Graham said, the rasp in his voice gone scathing. “Over the New Canaanites, my _people,_ who were slaughtered? The life of a man who _knows_ the only language the White Legs speak is violence and bloodshed. You and Daniel are one and the same, and I have no more patience for it. Take your bleeding heart up with him and see if it saves this place. _We_ will do the necessary work.”

“He’s not anything like you!” Dixie tried to drag him down as Marius stood, hands shaking again, acutely aware of the gun in Graham’s hand and his machete a pace away on the ground. Terror welled up at his own stupidity, and he could feel every drop of blood spattered on him, hear every fly starting to swarm over the White Leg corpses. But he couldn’t stop himself as he said, “No wonder you speak their language so well. I’d be only too happy to give you one last lesson in blood for blood if you’re so desperate for it, _Legate._ If you want to talk about families being slaughtered.”

Graham drew himself up, but behind him, the Dead Horses warriors were looking on, one whispering what sounded like a translation to the others. There was still fury in his eyes, but his voice was lower as he said, “God has given me the chance to make this right, and you will not stand in my way.”

Marius snorted a little at the irony, but didn’t look down at his machete. He would get once chance at it, and if he knew it was coming—

“Attack him and you kill a Sorrows man,” Waking Cloud said, quietly.

The Burned Man barely glanced at her, before coming back to Marius. His expression didn’t seem to change, under the bandages, but he holstered his weapon. “Run your errands for Daniel, for all the good they will do.”

He turned away, the Dead Horses making space for him. Marius let them reach the bridge before turning back, legs giving out from sheer stress. He landed next to Dixie, whose eyes were still darker than normal, but bearing an unmistakable look of frustration. Marius started to shrug. “I just—ow!”

He had to stand again as Waking Cloud dragged him up by his ear. “If you were any more a child I would give you a spanking,” she said, mouth set. “Of all the men to anger in this valley, you chose the one who would throw us all into chaos! I like him no more than you, but there is more here than your hatred of the Burned Man.” She took a breath, letting it out slowly. “You need not follow his orders any more. But follow _sense._ I am sorry for your pain, but no one is aided by this.”

Marius put a hand over his ear, unable to look her in the eye.

“We have done enough today,” she said, cooling a little. “Better we are rested before facing our next challenge.”

“If there’s another war party like that coming, we should act before it arrives,” Dixie said, starting to lever himself up.

Waking Cloud shook her head, firmly. “There have not been enough preparations, it seems. We will go to the burial grounds first, and _both_ of you will learn the datura antidote, and then you will rest. I will find you tomorrow with what needs to be accomplished.”

“But the White Legs—”

“Have not arrived yet, and you will have a tired day still, from the poison.” She watched as Marius helped Dixie to his feet, before reaching to hand him his machete. He couldn’t avoid her gaze this time as he took it back. “We are in terrible times, and I think you are not strangers to hard work, but you must tend to yourselves to face it. You have been asked to save an entire tribe—no small thing. If you will not act with care for yourselves, I will ask it of you. The dead can save no one.”

She led, and they followed. Marius couldn’t help but look at Dixie as they retraced their path north, and he looked back at him with weariness in his eyes. “That wouldn’t have done anything but get you killed.”

The only answer Marius had was to put a kiss on his temple, as much apology as relief, that they had both lived to walk away.

***

They did as Waking Cloud asked, following her to a camp overlooking the Sorrows’ dead, nestled in the cliffs. Damianus didn’t risk a look down at the platforms, the breeze bringing the occasional waft of rot up to them—The Sorrows had no doubt lost people to the White Legs.

He breathed through his mouth as he listened to Waking Cloud talk them through the recipe for the datura antitoxin, eyes heavy, hoping Marius was listening more closely. Between the exertion and the last effects of the poison, all he wanted was to curl up and sleep, and nearly nodded off with his head in his hand as she finally said, “We will likely head to the west of Zion tomorrow, where these plants grow, and I will show you them. But that is tomorrow’s trouble. Go rest.”

All but sleepwalking by the time they reached the fishing lodge, Damianus let Marius fuss over him, tucking him into their cushion-pile bed and leaving a bottle of water where he could reach it. He murmured a thanks, eyes still closed, and was barely aware of Marius stroking his hair before moving away.

He woke with his heart pounding, his mind still grasping at vague images of the Burned Man and Marius standing over him, as if they bartered over his soul. Or no—a bloodied Marius standing between them, as Graham loomed larger than life with a fire in his eyes, one hand outstretched to smite him and—

Damianus rubbed his face, reaching for the bottle of water. The nightmare faded as he sat up, sipping to clear a frankly awful taste from his mouth, leaving him with a vague unease as he stared at the cold fireplace. The sun had shifted to late afternoon, through the boarded up windows, and he leaned back to look at the bar and the quiet click of tools being laid down.

“Feel better?” Marius asked, starting to pack his things up—he had been waiting for him to wake, before making so much noise.

“Better than I was,” he said, giving the Pip-boy on the bar a questioning look. “Keeping busy, over there?”

Marius just grinned, turning one of the knobs with a flourish. The guitar over the device’s radio was nearly lost in static, but Damianus could make out the screen, no longer bearing the error message he had come to expect. “Works just fine. I tested the biometrics, map and compass, and now the radio,” Marius said, still terribly pleased with himself. “The only hard part is finding a station in the middle of nowhere.”

“Look at you,” Damianus said, smiling back. Unable to resist, he added, soberly, “Ricky would be _so_ proud that you’re the one who—”

Marius rolled his head back to stare at the ceiling. “That’s dark even for you. And he’d be frothing at the mouth.”

“What? Worried he’s gonna haunt you over it?” Damianus asked, and had to catch the wrench Marius lobbed at him—but was grinning a little as he did.

He let Marius clean up his things as he got up to stretch, back tight from the earlier fight. He swung his arms, twisting at the waist as he went to lean on the bar. “Feel like I’ve gotten out of shape, doing nothing but running around. Join me for some exercise?”

“Mmh.” He made a face, still tucking things into his pack. “I’m sore enough from today, you go have fun.”

“It’s not supposed to be fun,” Damianus said, looping a hand around his arm and giving it a little tug. “But it might be if you join me?”

He leaned over to kiss his brow, but stayed seated. “I’ve got a couple things I want to do, but I might join you in a bit?”

“Slacker,” Damianus said, the word full of affection. Marius grinned again and waved him off.

The parking lot outside the lodge was packed dirt, and partially shaded. Damianus took advantage of it, stretching a little before going through a series of exercises. He was pleased to find he hadn’t gone soft from all the good food and relatively easy living they’d been doing—until they reached Zion, anyway—and pushed himself a little further, stalling, watching the door for Marius to come out and join him.

It stayed shut. Damianus finally gave up, giving his arms one last shake-out before heading inside and intending to tell Marius how good it had felt, but he was out of sight. Instead, he was murmuring to himself in the bathroom, and Damianus shrugged, going behind the bar to search for a bottle of sarsaparilla. He hesitated as he opened the fridge—meat and vegetables had been cut up into bowls, ready to cook. Damianus pulled the sarsaparilla out of the fridge without disturbing anything, when he was certain he heard his name. Not calling for him, not to get his attention. It was buried in the midst of Marius’ mutterings and, curious, Damianus moved quietly near the bathroom door to listen.

“…Wanted to tell you for so long now, that I…” The door was cracked open, and Damianus dared a peek through it. Marius was brushing his hair back, fussing over getting every strand aligned as he muttered to himself. He started again. “Dixie, we’ve been traveling together for a while now, but I wanted to say—wanted to tell you?—to say…” Some of his hair slipped out of his grasp, and he blew out a breath, frustrated.

“I’ve been trying to find a way—a time, I’ve been trying to find the right time… You sound fucking desperate, Marius,” he muttered to the mirror, running the comb through his hair again. “I’ve wanted to find the right time to say how much I love you, Dixie.” His eyes widened, and he took a huge breath, only to let it out slowly. “I wanted to find the perfect time to say I loved you. I do love you. Dixie, I love you, and I’m saying it like an idiot—” he said, with a kind of verbal flail to it that was quickly followed by his hands, thrown up over his head. He made a wordless groan as he wiped both hands on his face, sinking down to sit on the closed toilet.

Damianus leaned back from the door, heart hammering in his chest so loud he was almost certain Marius would hear it. He felt guilty listening in on him like this, but—

“Dixie, we’ve been together a while now, and... ” Marius was saying, voice muffled from resting his face in his hands still. “And it’s taken me a while to realize it, and even longer to—to find a way to tell you. I’ve never met anyone like you.” The shuffle of him moving, and Damianus could imagine him sitting up, heard him take a long breath. “Someone with such compassion, who has been kinder to me than I’ve ever deserved. I am… humbled by how much love you have to give, and that you would give it to me.

“I only waited because I wanted this to be perfect, you don’t deserve anything less. I want to give you everything I have in me, and more. I love you, Dixie, more than, uh… More than any star in the sky, more than I have words to tell you.” He let out a sigh, and ended with one last, quiet, “I love you.”

A long, contemplative silence followed, and Damianus crept away only when he heard the rustle of Marius standing again, presumably going back to the fight with his hair, to disguise the sound of him moving. He snagged his pack and slipped out the door, leaving it open to let fresh air into the lodge as he sat down on the little wooden stoop. Wiping the sweat off his neck—from more than exertion—he ensured he looked busy with his knives and whetstone by the time he heard Marius come out of the bathroom.

He felt himself tense, listening to footsteps padding around inside just to stop somewhere not far behind him.

Was he going to do this _now?_

His stomach flipped, feeling like he was falling—and he waited, head studiously down, pretending he wasn’t paying attention. Wasn’t waiting and listening, as he ran a blade over the whetstone. Eventually the sound of footsteps came again, moving away from him. He peeked over his shoulder, but Marius was out of sight of the doorway, moving about somewhere farther inside.

Damianus blew out a breath he’d been holding, and looked back to his work. Maybe not now.

Just wait. Be patient, give him time.

… But he’d really meant all that, right?

He finished with one knife and picked up another, listening to the noises in the lodge: Marius messing around at the fireplace, muttering to himself where he couldn’t hear. The sound of food sizzling, and soon the smell, red meat and jalapenos, spices, wine. Stomach growling, he set down the knife and patiently picked up the next one, putting it to the whetstone as the afternoon wore late, blue sky turning gold and the sun lighting the cliffs a stark red as it angled at them from the horizon, put them in contrast to the blue shadows they cast. There was the scrape of furniture, the Pip-boy radio clicking on and surfing static in search of a channel with better reception.

The sun was making its way below the western cliffs when Marius poked his head out the door. "Are you hungry?" he asked, as if Damianus wasn't always hungry, especially when Marius cooked. Something in his posture, the way his fingers toyed with the peeling paint of the door, seemed as nervous as Damianus felt.

When he went inside he found Marius had set one of the tables with the candles they kept just in case. There was a bottle of wine beside two glasses carefully scrubbed of centuries of dust, and two plates of supper he must have traded the Sorrows and the Dead Horses for things to make: strips of bighorner steak, and vegetables and jalapeños steamed in some kind of sauce, with crumbled bighorner cheese and a plate stacked with flat, golden brown fry bread.

"What's the occasion?" Damianus asked carefully as he sat down, his mouth already watering.

"No occasion, I just… thought we could do something special?" Marius fidgeted with the cloth napkins he'd scrounged up from somewhere in the lodge, smoothing his out next to his plate. "Since it's just us."

"I like it."

"You haven't even tried it yet." He smiled a little feebly.

"I just mean—I like that it's special. You went all out."

"Thanks." There was an awkward pause. "Well…" He gestured vaguely at the food.

The radio played in the quiet as they ate. Neither was sure what to talk about, even when they started into the wine and it warmed its way through Damianus' belly. It occurred to him that this was a date, like normal people did sometimes—and he didn't really know what you were supposed to do or say, on a date. Though it seemed Marius didn't either.

At least they were uncomfortable together.

They talked a little here and there about nothing in particular. Damianus asked him about the book he'd been reading lately, and Marius looked relieved to have a subject to go on about, regaling him with the best parts around mouthfuls of bread.

“...So they were worried about being turned inside out by the changes in pressure, more or less. Nobody had ever dove that deep. That, or the whole submersible would crumple like a tin can,” Marius was saying, looking at his plate instead of the mildly horrified expression on Damianus’ face. “One bad weld that they didn’t know about, and…”

He trailed off, shrugging. Damianus nodded. “Well that’s… Gruesome.” Which wasn’t the sort of word that should come up on a date, he felt, and saw the look Marius tried to hide.

When they were done Marius took the empty plates away and carried them to the sink behind the bar while Damianus sat fidgeting with his half-empty glass, wondering vaguely when he'd hear that speech Marius had been practicing. Was all this a buildup to that?

He looked up when Marius returned, standing beside the table. Marius put his hands nervously in his pockets, then thought the better of it, and hiked his thumb at the radio. "Do you—would you want to dance with me?"

Damianus stared at him a moment, stunned.

"Or not, if you don't want to."

"No, it's just… I can't dance."

"That's okay." Marius grinned and laughed a little. "I won't judge you."

"No, I mean…" He patted his brace. "Physically. My leg."

He could see the dawning horror on Marius' face, smile frozen and fading as he ran a hand back through his hair. "Oh. Of course. Right. I—"

"I can maybe sway a little," Damianus said quickly. "If you don't mind a slow dance. I just can't do much fancy footwork."

"That's fine. A slow dance is fine, that's completely—I mean only if you want to, we don't have to—"

Oh, this was all too painful. Damianus couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed Marius' hand and shuffled out of his seat, let him lead him to a spot he'd cleared.

He'd seen people dance like this, at festivals out west when the music slowed down. There was an awkward moment of trying to figure out without discussion whose hands went where, before he tentatively rested his right hand on Marius' shoulder, and felt Marius' shaking hand fall to his hip, the other clasped in his left. Unfortunately they didn't have much control over the music playing on the radio, something bright and jazzy, but it was just there to fill the silence; they ignored it, finding their own slower tempo between beats and swaying around in half steps.

It got easier from there when Damianus didn't expect it to, staring up into Marius' dark eyes. He grinned unconsciously, as he always did.

He could stare at those eyes all day, really.

Marius smiled back, a slow thing dawning gently on his face as if he was realizing something. "I love you," he said. Just like that.

Damianus felt his stomach flip over, his heart flutter. "I love you too."

"I… I had a whole thing I was supposed to say here—"

"I know. I heard you practicing it."

"Yeah? What did you think?"

"That you sounded like a nervous wreck, and I love you for it. I know you..." He paused, thinking, and slid his hand down from Marius' shoulder, rested it over his heart. "I know you have trouble sometimes, saying what you mean in here. I do too. Maybe not for the same reasons, for me it's—the words get tangled up because I'm not sure what the right way to say it is." Marius nodded, raising his eyebrows a little. "Whatever it is for you, thank you for trying anyway. To tell me. Thank you for telling me."

Marius took a deep breath, nodded, eyes softening as he stared at him. "I love you," he said again. "So much."

"I love you back."

Marius' hands were still shaking on him and he realized he was shaking too—it was a lot. To finally have it out there, have it said. After feeling it for so long. When had he fallen in love with him?

Over and over. Somewhere at Nellis, watching him work, seeing him smile and laugh as he took his picture. Or maybe it was before that, somewhere between Cottonwood and the Old Mormon Fort—that was it, wasn't it? He wasn't sure when the feeling had gotten there but he knew the first moment he'd known it for what it was, somewhere in his heart: it was sitting by Marius' sickbed and wanting nothing more than to crawl in with him, to hold him as he waited for him to wake up. It was when he lifted him off the ground and carried him there, suddenly certain that his life would be over if Marius' life ended. That he couldn't imagine going on without him, whatever it took to save him.

He'd been in love with him before then. But part of him first realized it then. And kept realizing it, over and over since. Kept falling in love with him.

And here they were.

"Do you want a drink?" Marius said suddenly. "Because I—"

"Think you could use one?"

"I think I could use one."

"Me too."

Even so, they kept swaying still, looking in each other's eyes. Damianus went up on his tiptoes to kiss him, slow and sweet, and Marius sighed against his mouth like he'd been holding his breath until then. He tasted like spices and wine, and Damianus found they were even better secondhand.

They found their way to the couch with the vodka bottle eventually, sitting half on each other as they snuggled up close, sodas on the end table for chasers and passing the bottle between them as they talked or… didn't talk. Just kissed, sometimes. On one of his turns to take a drink, laughing, Damianus felt Marius catch his arm as he lifted the bottle to his lips, running a thumb over the scars on his forearm. They were long and jagged, from his wrist nearly to his elbow. "I was… _really_ high," Marius said slowly, "but I think I remember you saying you got that off a yao guai?"

"Yeah, near Ruidoso." He flexed his fingers, turning his arm in Marius' grip. "We ran into it in the woods on our way through to… El Paso, I think? I drew its attention while the others attacked its flank—it got my arm in its mouth and almost took it off before I ripped it away."

Marius hissed a breath in through his teeth and rolled up his sleeve, showing a bite mark on his own forearm. "I have one like that. Dog, though."

"What'd you do to it?" Damianus asked, running his fingers over the jagged scars.

"Nothing!"

"Uh huh. Then why'd it bite you?"

"Why'd the yao guai bite _you_?" Marius demanded, watching Damianus' fingers play over each of the marks on his arm.

"Because it was hungry and I look like a sssnack," he said haughtily, struggling more than usual on the 'S'.

Marius snorted. There were goosebumps where Damianus' fingers passed. "I was on a courier route, passing through an abandoned town, and heard it crying in a storm drain. Thought it was a ghost at first—shut _up_ , they're real," he added at Damianus' look. "Pulled it out and this was the thanks I got for the trouble.

"Didn't blame the dog. It was just scared."

"Yeah," Damianus said, "I know some people who bite when they're scared."

Marius squinted at him, taking the bottle back. "What's that s'posed to mean?" he asked.

"Nothing." He smiled and watched him take a drink, fascinated by his Adam's apple as he tilted his head back. "What about these?" Damianus asked, trailing his fingers up Marius' arm to what looked like an old burn on his wrist, more around his fingers.

"Just mending and working the forge, you know,” he said, lowering his drink. “Hot metal and tools. You have some too," he said, catching Damianus' hand in his own and rubbing his thumb over the thick scars on his knuckles, the nicks on his fingers. "Fighting?"

"Yeah. Yes. Blades and fists."

"Have to take better care of yourself," Marius murmured, lifting his hand to his mouth to plant a kiss on his knuckles. Goosebumps ran down Damianus' skin, as they always did when he did that. He really, really liked when he did that.

"Look who's talking," he managed, running his fingers over another mark on Marius' arm as his sleeve fell, a clean slash that had to have come from a blade. "Done your share of fighting too. How'd you get this one?"

Marius peered at it, lips still pressed against Damianus' hand. He lowered it to say: "Blocked a blade with my arm. Bastard was coming at my face, and—"

"And of course, you had to protect your pretty face."

"No, I wanted a really gnarly—of _course_ I wanted to protect my face!"

Damianus pretended to reel back at that, taking his hand back from Marius to touch the scar on his own cheek and half-feigning a hurt look just to get to him—even as a sickly feeling he'd been having lately wormed its way back into his gut. He saw Marius' eyes widen, the horror growing on his face as he reached out to touch the same scar, his fingers overlapping Damianus'. "I didn't mean it like that. Your—I mean—" he said, trailing his fingers over the length of it, the puckered branches where Doc Mitchell had sewn it shut. "Your face is still pretty, okay?"

As he leaned forward to kiss it, Damianus said, "I'm only joking, it doesn't bother me," and knew he was lying. It didn't used to; scars were marks of honor, remembrances of the pain he'd endured in Caesar's name, proof of his survival and superiority against Caesar's enemies. That was a bitter thought now, looking back. To be marked in the name of Caesar. To be ugly in service to Caesar. No longer something to be proud of—for all he was exaggerating his shame to get Marius' goat, it was still there, settled in his gut.

But Marius' lips traced the length of the scar in small pecks, from his ear nearly to his mouth, then onward, kissing his lips with a taste of vodka still clinging to his breath. "You're gorgeous," he murmured against Damianus' mouth.

Marius leaned back, looking it over again, touched its companion on his hairline. "How did it… happen?"

That wound was still raw, he found to his surprise as he opened his mouth to say it. It took a couple of tries before he managed: "Point blank, execution. But I tried to move at the last moment. Don't—don't know how I thought I'd get away, but I had to try, right? I was on the ground from the bullet in my jaw, choking on my own blood, when he gave me the second one straight to the head."

He felt Marius shudder under him. Somewhere in the shuffle of touching and kissing he'd ended up half in his lap, looking down at him as Marius looked up, a rare thing. He pulled him down to plant another kiss on the crater at his hairline. Damianus accepted it, feeling something warm starting to settle in him where the shame was—not overtaking it, not entirely, but soothing it a little. As they sat like that, Marius' lips pressed to his forehead, he caught sight of a ropey wheal peeking over the back of Marius' shoulder from under his collar and reached to touch it. "Is this from—"

"From the training master. That time I ran away, and made him look like an idiot trying to hunt me down for days. There are more," he said, and Damianus leaned back to give him room as he pulled his shirt over his head. That gone, he leaned into Damianus' lap, giving him a view of his back. There must have been half a dozen of them, and he traced each with his fingers. "He was so angry when I turned myself in, he skipped the lash and paddled me right there with the flat of his machete, but the blade bit. Made me walk back like that," he said, with a sullen kind of hollowness at the memory, like he was recounting someone else's pain, "which probably made it scar worse."

Damianus leaned to kiss them over his shoulder, Marius half tucked against his middle, head resting against his side. He felt him tense, then relax into the touch. "I laughed when you told me that story," he murmured against his skin. "Think you thought I was laughing at you being beaten but it was… just, the thought of this brave, smart little boy that became—became you, making fools of his bullies. I was proud of you for it."

Marius paused a long moment, chest bent in his lap and relaxing there, apparently puzzling over the memory to recall the tension between them in that moment. He laughed a little. "He must have thought he'd be crucified for losing me."

"Served him right. To fear it, anyway. Even with this, you won." He ran the flat of his hand down the scars one more time, and felt Marius' hands working up under the hem of his shirt to trace the overlapping lines on his back. He drew a little breath at the feeling and leaned back.

"Sorry," Marius said, releasing him and sitting up, "Sorry, I just wondered—"

"No, fair's fair." He leaned away a little more to pull his shirt off, tossing it aside, and twisted in his lap to show him the mass of scars on his back, ropey pink lines that crisscrossed the length and breadth of his skin. He felt Marius' fingers tracing them, more delicate by far than the hand that had left them there.

"How many…?" he asked, voice soft.

"Twenty for my crime, and one for losing count." Damianus squirmed, uncomfortable with the twist in his posture to show him, and the warmth of the vodka in his belly told him to just lay his bare chest against Marius', let him look at them over his shoulder as he'd done with him, so he did. Marius inhaled a little breath of surprise as he did, wrapped his arms around him in something like a hug, but said nothing, fingers still following the tracks on his back. "Had my own bully in training, Quintus. Erasmus kept him off me when he was around, but… Y'know. Couldn' be around all the time. So... one day he came after me, and I settled it for good."

"You… killed him?"

"No," Damianus shook his head against Marius' neck. A thought occurred as he did, remembering something, and he leaned up to plant an idle kiss on the scar near his temple, left there by the raider who almost took Marius away from him, and the surgery that had saved him. "May as well have," he muttered. "Beat him so badly he'd never recover, never serve. My reward for defeating the decanus of our training group was to take his place. But my punishment for destroying Caesar's property…"

Marius nodded against him. They stayed like that for a minute, Marius soothing his hands over the lash marks as Damianus' palm found the mess of scars on his biceps from Vulpes. Another attempt to take him away. Another near miss.

"What about this one?" Damianus asked, running his hand lower to a long gash he could feel on his ribs. He leaned back to look, and Marius did the same, lifting a hand to rest it over his. The bottle of vodka sat forgotten, wedged between Marius' thigh and the armrest as they explored each other.

"Turned aside to avoid a spear as I approached a tribal camp. I was eleven, I think, still in training and shadowing Ulysses at the time. Remember…" He paused, thinking, as Damianus' fingers grazed lightly over it, following its path along his ribs up to his chest. Marius’ hand caught his when he found a ticklish spot running back down his side. "I remember him checking on me, making sure I wouldn't die. He wasn't kind about it, but he was patient, you know?" he said, and Damianus nodded. He had only seen him in passing on rare occasions, never worked with him or even held a conversation. Damianus, a grunt through and through, had been something of the odd man out among the frumentarii, as he suspected Marius had been in his brief time training for infantry. But from what little he knew of Ulysses, 'not kind, but patient' seemed an apt description of the man. 

"He lectured me as he showed me how to take care of it. I remember he wasn’t harsh about it, just… Said something about any Legionary could have a slave tend him, but a better one would treat his own wounds, without flinching. He was very calm about it, so I guess I tried to be, too."

"Wise man. Sounds like he helped you a lot, in his way," Damianus said, for lack of any better comment.

"Yeah." They were quiet a moment, the knowledge of who had caused their current predicament still hanging over them as Marius' hands found the long scar that cut diagonally across Damianus' chest. "And this?" he asked, fingers dancing over it in a way that raised more goosebumps.

"Los Lunas. My first battle, must have been… thirteen still. Barely, even. Second or third man I fought there," he added. "The first went down quick. I was terrified, even after all my training, but he was too stunned to be facing a—a child, I guess. Didn't think of myself as one at the time."

"Legion would have called you a man, but you were still just a child," Marius said firmly.

"I was," he said. "And that hes—" It took a couple of tries with his tongue half numb from the alcohol: "hesitation saved me the first man I met, but by the next, they'd rallied. Realized it was fight the children or be killed by us. So they struck back. My armor was a poor fit, I was so small—blade went right past it.

"How about this one?" Damianus asked next, trailing his hands over a raking scar across Marius' belly that made him suck his stomach in, ticklish. He laughed softly, and tried again, gentler.

"Raiders in New Mexico," Marius said.

"Ssssorry. About that. You'd think we’d got them all."

"Must have been stragglers," he agreed, smiling a little. "Scared the shit out of me, I thought they'd gutted me."

"Scared the—"

"The crap?" Marius said, raising an eyebrow.

"No, on second thought I s'pose that warrants a shit or two."

He leaned his head back and laughed. They took another drink in the pause that followed, each of them, before screwing the cap back on and sitting the bottle aside on the end table. 

"How 'bout this?" Marius asked, touching his right shoulder, a mess of scars.

"That's a couple," he said. He pointed to old burning and puncture scars on the meat of his shoulder first. "Climbed into a burning building to get to some children during a raid. They were smoking the tribals out, but the children had been trapped and I—I couldn't listen to their screams. Went in and grabbed them, two of them. Tossed them out a window to Erasmus, and he handed them off to Red River to put with the other children they were rounding up. But the roof collapsed while I was in there, and I had to climb through the debris." He rubbed at it. "No one said anything for my softness, saving them. Suppose the centurion thought getting injured doing it was lesson enough."

"That's you," Marius said softly. "That's my Dixie. Even as Damianus." He flushed at the warmth in his voice, as Marius' hand traced the circle of puncture marks around his shoulder that looked as if a great maw had snapped down in him. "And this… this was the Sierra Madre," he said, not quite a question.

"Yes. I took the weapon that did it. I think you saw it—"

"Hell of a thing. What were you fighting?"

"Ghosts," Damianus muttered, shaking his head. Marius gave him a look. "Maybe not the kind you're thinking of, but that's what we called them, we—me and the others who were there. Or who knows, maybe they really were ghosts like… whatever you mean, when you say it."

"Maybe." Marius leaned forward and kissed the mark, briefly, offered a faint smile. "So you have to stop making fun of mine."

"Fair enough. Did a ghost do this?" he teased anyway, touching a puncture scar on Marius' belly.

"Nope. That one was a radscorpion I found in the dark while I was camping on a courier route."

"Oof. My condolences."

"It wasn't that big and my armor stopped most of it, but I thought I'd _be_ a ghost for about two hours. Hurt like hell." He thought a moment, then said: "Here, get up, I'll show you one a ghost did. Or, a ghost _town_."

He climbed out of his lap, sitting aside as Marius stood and, to his surprise, started unzipping his pants. He almost said something, almost stopped him, but—he didn't. He wasn't ready for this to go anywhere, not with the last time still fresh, their argument so recent, the vodka so buzzy in his head. But he trusted Marius, even as he watched him hop gracelessly to get out of his pants, almost falling over. Trusted him that this was something simple, gentle, that he wouldn't push.

Standing in only his shorts, Marius propped a foot up on the couch cushion next to him and showed him an old, stretched puncture mark on his calf. "There. Sinkhole in an old abandoned mining town. I was exploring it with my—" A pause, as Damianus trailed his fingers over it and looked up at him. "With my mother." He took a breath, held it a moment in his chest, before he went on, speaking a little distantly as if about someone else's life again: "Foragers had told her it was mostly empty, so we thought it would be safe to look around together. I was excited to go with her. First one to find out about the sinkholes, though.

"Some of it's a blur, I only remember the ground going up over my head, an' winding up somewhere dark with a pain in my leg, screaming my head off for her. I was terrified."

"She found you, though," Damianus said, and he nodded. "She must have been scared, too." More hesitantly, he nodded again.

"She was. Which only made me _more_ scared, while she treated it on the spot. Ran all the way back to camp with me in her arms, still bawling."

There was a silence between them, Marius lost in memories as Damianus gently massaged at the spot on his leg. "She must have," he started at last, paused, but finished: "She must have loved you."

"Maybe."

“Here. I have one for you.” Damianus stood, hands steadier than he expected as he undid his pants and dropped them, albeit clumsily, then sat back down to unbuckle his brace starting at his thigh. Marius sat next to him, looking to him for permission before taking the other end, near his ankle. They worked it off his leg and he lifted it to cross over the other, wincing at a twinge in his knee as he bent it and showed Marius his ankle. An old scar, unmistakably surgical in its precision; it was shaped like an inverted T, the crossbar wrapping around his heel and the post running up the back of his tendon. “Don’t even know where I got this, it’s been there as long as I can remember. Must be from… before. Treating something, maybe, whatever it is went wrong with my leg. Probably can only walk as well as I can for whoever did this when I was a babe.”

“And you have no idea who?” Marius asked, running his fingers over it, tickling the back of his heel with his fingertips.

“I have… _some_ idea.” He shook his head. “Don’t really remember my father, whoever he was, but I have—have a couple of images of him, in my head. Fuzzy. Couldn’t tell you what he looked like, but… remember him wearing a white coat, especially when we had visitors over.”

“A doctor,” Marius said quietly. Damianus nodded.

“I think so. I didn’t… didn’t get the chance to ask Ridley about him.” The name almost choked him on its way out, that old hurt resettling in his throat. Not that old. Only weeks since she looked him in the eye, found him wanting, and abandoned him.

“I think… that it must take a strong man to perform surgery on his baby,” Marius said slowly, tracing the long line up the back of his ankle. “Whatever it was needed for. He must have loved you, too.”

“Maybe.” He sat a while, rubbing at the scar on Marius’ thigh from where the Viper had stabbed him, back when they barely knew each other. Back when things were cold and difficult between them. He laughed at a thought and tapped the scar. “Remember this?”

“Do I ever.”

“Imagine you at that moment,” he said, and Marius nodded. “Imagine if you could go back to _that_ Marius right now, and tell him we’d be doing _this_ in a few months’ time,” he said, gesturing between them, sat side by side in their underwear, cuddled close on a couch in a warm lodge and touching each other’s bare skin with a religious reverence. Marius laughed a little in his throat, running his hand over a long gash on Damianus’ thigh where a cosmic knife spear had struck him in the Madre, then up to another like it—same story—that went from his hip bone nearly to his ribs.

“Think he’d have said I was insane,” he said softly. “More fool him.”

“The same, for me. We were both fools.” Marius hummed as he leaned to kiss him, long and slow. Damianus’ heart fluttered, but their hands stayed above the line of the belts they’d taken off, Damianus’ fingers tracing the length of what must have been a glancing gunshot on Marius side and making him shiver. “And this?”

“Shot at by some townies,” he muttered against his lips, “didn’t take kindly to a lone Legionary wandering up to their town. I ran away, of course, but I reported them when I hit the next Legion camp. Was angry at them, thought it was my duty to say something. Now I think on it, it must have gone poorly for them.”

“Not your fault,” Damianus said quietly. “That sin is on the hands of whoever carried it out. Men like me,” he added.

Marius took his hands up and kissed them. “No, it’s on the hands of the men who gave the orders, made you do those things.”

“I still carry the marks. Reminders.” He touched the scar on his own chest with his free hand. “From when I took someone’s life. With or without the—the mercy of killing 'em dead.”

“They’re not what makes you,” Marius said. “ _You’re_ what makes you. The rest is just decoration.”

“Ugly decoration.”

“I beg to differ.” He leaned and kissed the burn scars on his shoulder, down to the mark on his chest.

“Marius—” Damianus whispered, and he hesitated.

“Sorry. I’m not pushing you. We don’t have to do anything. I only want you to know… know that you’re beautiful to me, okay? Scars and all.”

Damianus flushed, nodded. “And you to me.”

Marius smiled, and they looked at each other. Damianus was the first to glance away, overwhelmed by the moment, and took up the vodka bottle again for something to do with his hands, even as Marius pulled him back into his lap to hold him. Just hold him. Nothing else, right now. They didn’t have to do anything else, just touch each other, hold each other.

Damianus threw back a mouthful of the vodka, still warming into his nose and gradually numbing what was left of his tongue, and said into the soft silence: “Za schramy.”

“... Beg pardon?”

“To our scars.” He handed the bottle over. “Language of the last men I drank vodka with. They did a lot of toasts, taught me a few.”

“Like that… what was it. Boomo?”

“Budmo. That one’s fun, but there was a whole system, it seemed like. The order you were supposed to say toasts in.”

Marius nodded, taking a drink. “The first one is to scars?”

“No, that was just off my head. The first one is for the reason you’re meeting, so for us it’s…” He thought carefully through the haze in his head. They’d told him many, taught him as many words as they could in the week he travelled with them. “To our date. Za pobachennya,” he said, and Marius hefted the bottle in agreement.

“Za po—”

“Pobachennya.”

“Pobachennya,” he managed, more or less, handing the bottle back. “Are there more?”

“Of course there are more. I told you, they liked their vodka. The second is… to happiness. Za shchastya.”

“You’re making this up. It’s just a tongue-twister to make drunks try and say too many S sounds,” Marius said, grinning, and Damianus nodded solemnly.

“You can imagine how much harder it is for _me_ then.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know.” He grinned and handed the bottle back after taking another drink. “Za shchastya.”

“Za sshastyuh,” Marius said, taking his drink. “Any more?”

“Next is… to love.”

“To love.” Marius smiled.

“Tak, za lyubov.” They each drank to that, giggling more between them as the vodka numbed their fingertips and lips, that they used to touch and kiss between sips.

Damianus ran out of ones that he knew, after that, aside from “Budmo!” to which Marius learned his part: “Hey!”

He liked that one, and it got them giggling, bouncing Budmos and Heys back and forth and drinking, laughing and falling over each other until they’d drank too much and turned lazy and tired. The bottle left abandoned on the table, the two of them still snickering, they ended up tangled together on the couch, legs and arms wrapped together, Marius’ head resting on Damianus’ chest as they drifted. Still they chattered drunkenly here and there, rubbing uncoordinated hands over old scars and trading kisses until—half naked, wrapped in each other—they fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

They picked at jerky and leftover bread as Waking Cloud led them to the western stretch of Zion, then turned them south. It had only just begun to grow light when she had woken them, saying that the burial grounds had been attacked in the night—and the White Leg fighters driven off, by the extra guards that Dixie had recommended. But Waking Cloud had remained grim as she led them on, quiet, their duties seeming to put a weight on her shoulders.

Marius saw Dixie rubbing at his eyes from time to time, squinting even at the overcast sky as the sun was considered passing the horizon. “I’m never drinking that much again,” he muttered, taking an unenthusiastic bite of soggy fry bread.

“Don’t make promises future-you can’t keep,” Marius said, slipping a hand under his pack to rest on the small of his back. “At least it could have been worse, we didn’t finish the bottle.”

He mumbled something sour around the bread, but bumped his shoulder into Marius’ without breaking stride. Marius bumped him back and nodded ahead of them. “She doing okay?”

Dixie looked up at Waking Cloud’s back, watching the path warily. “You could ask,” he said, but not accusingly. At last, he shrugged. “Things are getting serious here. She’s probably feeling the same pressure that we are. More. She’s fighting for her home and her people.”

“I suppose,” Marius said. But something about her frown, when she turned her head, looked more troubled than focused.

She seemed to feel him watching, and pointed to a sheltered nook in the cliff face. “A spitting plant,” she said, almost whispering. “Be wary of them, they grow in caves and damp places. When this task is done, we might harvest one for its seeds.”

Marius just made out the—plant? creature?—in the shadow, a wide, almost toothy maw supported on a stalk. His skin crawled as its leaves rustled, but not from any wind, the bear-trap mouth turning to follow them. Beside him, Dixie started a little, sidling further away. “We could also not.”

Waking Cloud smiled as she looked back, but it was thin-lipped, tense, and her eyes were on the trail ahead just as quickly. They were making better time than the previous day, taking lower, easier paths, and Dixie murmured as much to her.

“The White Legs have drawn back most of their scouts,” she said, still keeping her voice low. “They are massing for an attack, soon. Passage is safer—for now.”

It was a grim sort of reassurance, and the two of them shared a look as they pressed on. Waking Cloud led them across a second bridge, the middle fallen out and a pair of vehicles stacked precariously across the gap. Marius tiptoed across them, waiting for a lurch and shriek of metal as they gave way—but they held, and he sighed to himself as he reached solid ground.

She looked back at them both, indicating the saddle-shaped valley ahead. “Bighorn Bluff is beyond this, and our scouts say the war camp is soon ahead,” she said, waiting for them to get in earshot. Her face was sober as she went on, “We are three against many, and a fight here would mean disaster.”

“I assume you have another plan?” Dixie said.

“They will have raised war totems, around their camps,” Waking Cloud said, indicating something standing about shoulder high. “The White Legs pray to them for ferocity before battle. If they were to be damaged, or go missing… At worst, they lose their heart in combat. At best, they flee.”

“Too much to hope for,” Dixie said, but with a wistful look. “How many? Where are they?”

“Come, quietly.” They fell in behind her, the branch in the valley sloping slowly down. At last, they stopped at a low ridge, overlooking a stand of rough tents. Hunkering behind a bulk of stone, the three of them gazed into the shadows ahead. “I would count… Ten men? Too small, for a war band.”

“They must have another camp nearby,” Dixie said, indicating the maze of standing stones. “No one on watch…they’re not expecting to be approached by anyone from this angle.”

Marius looked over the camp, the tents made of whatever scraps of tarp the White Legs could lay over a rope—but the shape was familiar, a Legion-style shelter that was quick to pack and carry. The White Legs in and around them seemed unconcerned by their lack of protection, in this far corner of Zion, and a handful still slept despite the growing light. He pointed to a structure on the edge of the group, thinking for a moment they had started to build one more tent, then abandoned the lone upright. “Is that a totem? I don’t think we can steal them, they’d make a racket to drag off.”

“Yes,” Waking Cloud said, still sizing up the campsite. Marius squinted at the structure, a tripod with a painted disk at its peak, and other junk that he couldn’t identify hanging from it. Cloud reached to touch him lightly on the shoulder. “Do you have anything to make fire?”

“A lighter,” Marius said, and Dixie patted the pocket he kept a flint and steel in. 

“So we burn them,” Dixie said, casting about the ground closer to them. “Did you bring the rest of that vodka?”

“Why would I bring that? I’m not going to drink in the middle of a mission,” Marius said, scowling. Dixie narrowed his eyes, and Marius shrugged. “I put it in your bag. Budmo.”

“Hey,” he sighed, not quite laughing, and let Marius dig it out. Waking Cloud crept over the clear space to a stand of dry grass, gathering sheafs of it with barely a rustle. “I will scout uphill, to see if there are other totems,” she said, passing them the kindling. “Be ready. Stay out of sight. We must act as one, to keep from being found.”

They nodded to her, and she ghosted away, one hand on the carry strap of her yao guai gauntlet. “What do we do if there’s more than three?” Marius murmured.

“More than two,” Dixie said, stretching his leg so the brace squeaked faintly. “Have to be fast. Or hope losing two totems is enough to scare them off.”

Dread started to curdle in Marius guts again. He swallowed, and Dixie gave him a worried look, but waited for him to say, “Yeah, we would.”

He seemed to be waiting for him to go on, but Marius kept his head down, trying the bundles of grass together with a rag. He hunched his shoulders as Dixie asked, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he said, throat dry. “My head just hurts.”

He didn’t resist as Dixie reached out to cup his face and turn it towards him, but wasn’t able to meet his eyes. He pulled away as Dixie rubbed his thumb against his cheek, the tenderness of it suddenly unbearable. Dixie frowned, but tried to hide it. “You were the one mad at me, for not telling you what I was feeling.”

Marius sighed. “I’m… Scared,” he said. Not _really_ a lie. ”Of… leaving you back here. And being alone as I…” He waved a hand at the White Leg camp.

“You’ll be fine,” Dixie said, kneading at his shoulder. “You’re good at this, handsome.”

The word caught him off guard, and he couldn’t help but give a breathless little chuckle. Now, of all times. “Then I trust you to watch our backs, babe.”

Dixie smiled suddenly, brilliant enough to rival the sunrise, and that, at least, put something in Marius at ease.

Waking Cloud slipped back to their hiding place with hardly a sound. “I see only one more,” she said, gathering up a few of the bundles. “I will light the one uphill, and as soon as they begin to shout, you must do the same. We will return here, and retreat on the path we came. Do you agree?”

They both murmured their assent, and soaked the tinder bundles with alcohol. Leaning in close, Dixie gave him a quick peck on the cheek and murmured, “Good luck.”

Marius nodded—then ducked out of his rifle sling. “It’ll just slow me down,” he said, “and if I need to start shooting, we’re already done. Just cover us, if we need.”

Dixie nodded, his expression grim. Taking a breath, Marius poked his head over the rocks, sighting on the totem ahead. Keeping to a crouch, he snuck into the shadow of a stone formation, breaking up line of sight in the ravine, then on to a stand of weeds that barely screened him from the camp.

He could hear the White Legs speaking to one another as they woke, a few still yawning and rubbing their eyes. The smell of cooking food was starting to waft over them, and he could hear more starting to stir. Teeth clenched hard enough to hurt, he let a tribal with a heavy, bone-tipped spear walk past, looking out into the ravine—so they did have some sentries.

The sky was lightening, the shadows getting more distinct—they were running out of time. Marius resisted the urge to look back at Dixie for… Reassurance? Encouragement? Hoping he would take over, in case it broke out into a fight again?

His hands were shaking. That was what they were trying to _avoid,_ with this. Marius huddled against a stone, the disk of the totem just visible beyond it. He didn’t want to fight them. Didn’t want to die here. And even more than that, didn’t want to make Dixie fight for him, to put his life on the line because Marius was a coward.

Bare feet shushed over the smooth pebbles of the valley, too close. Marius huddled lower, breathing deep and slow. _Focus._

A glance showed the White Leg moving on, and the totem in reach. Three low strides took him to the base of it, and he tossed the tinder bundles into the base of the tripod, which had been wrapped in cloth to help keep its shape. Glancing up at the camp, he paused, eye-level with a small red-and-gold banner, the sort that would have been used to mark a building as being under Legion protection.

Without a second thought, he ripped it off the stick it was tied to and tossed onto the tinder, lighter in his other hand. The bundles went up in a blue-tinged rush, and he scrambled to drop back to his last hiding place. There was a yell as he pressed himself against it—but from further away, where Waking Cloud had gone. A near one followed it, a wail of fear and anger, and Marius leaned out to see the totem going up in flames, the desert-dry wood snapping with the speed and heat of it.

More White Legs were crowding around, tossing handfuls of sand and dirt at the totem to smother the flames. He used the confusion to sidle further back, in case they started to look for a culprit. But as the shouting died down, there was a hushed murmur of “Thaah an kuna-man poha.” Variations of the phrase rippled through them in tones of fear, along with, “Kaisan sunha,” and once, clearly, _”Devil.”_

He was happy to let them blame it on a devil—he had a guess what, or who, ‘kuna-man’ was—and make his escape. Going the long way around what he could only describe as a miniature mesa, the sound of the camp faded, and he let himself take a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. Rounding the far side, he saw Dixie briefly turn away from the camp, noticing him, and held up a hand. Marius paused, waiting for Dixie to beckon him in before crossing the gap. He scooted across as fast as he could, and he passed his rifle back to him as he took cover. “Has Waking Cloud come back yet?”

"No," Dixie murmured, helping him get the sling over his head. "She said to sit tight."

Marius nodded, a little reluctantly. "No more than a couple minutes, though, if they decide to—"

Marius nearly broke his nose on the stone as Dixie pushed him down, and there was a short yelp of pain as he vaulted over him. Scrambling to his feet, Marius was nearly knocked over by Dixie as he dragged a White Leg behind the stones, a hand clamped over his mouth as he struggled, still gurgling around the gaping wound in his throat. Dixie kept his grip as he bled out, keeping him from thrashing as his movements slowed, finally dropping him when he went limp. "Changed my mind," he said. Making sure the body was out of sight, he wiped a knife on the man’s clothes before reaching into a pouch on his belt. “We should get moving now. I don’t think he was looking for us, just wandering, but I'm not sitting here to be found. We ought to cross paths with Waking Cloud on our way out. You need more 5.56?”

He held up a handful of ammo, the corpse beside him no more interesting than the stones. Marius swallowed as he took it from him, managing to whisper, “Thanks.”

With a little nod, Dixie turned back up the path, still keeping low behind the stones. Marius followed, trying to keep an eye on the landscape around them instead of staring at his back.

The things Graham had said bubbled up in his memory, and Marius grimaced, watching his footing. At least one of them had the nerve to do what needed to be done.

***

Waking Cloud caught them up as they passed back into Zion proper, giving the blood on Damianus’ hands an askance look. “One came across us. He didn’t sound the alarm,” he said. She only nodded, gesturing them up the path. “Is everything alright? The totem was destroyed?”

“I completed my task unseen. All is well,” she said, but her tone didn’t convince him. When she looked back to see the question on his face, Waking Cloud grimaced. “Apologies, my attention wanders today. But my feet do not; let us return to safer territory.”

“If there’s something on your mind, we would be willing to hear it,” Damianus said, picking his way carefully up the loose stones of the path. “You’ve helped us enough, the least we can do is listen.”

She smiled, if wearily. “Then let us rest a moment. I myself have eaten little today.”

They found a perch along the cliff face, out of sight of most paths and offering a wide overlook of Zion Valley. Waking Cloud sat one knee drawn up, pulling a cloth wrapped bundle from the pouch on her hip. Damianus settled beside her, and he caught a glimpse of Marius eyeing the drop and staying a little further back. Unwrapping the bundle, Waking Cloud said, “Daniel did not mention I was married?”

“No?” Damianus said, with a glance up at Marius, who tipped his head to her. “Marius only knew because you told him. He’s not in the valley, it sounds like?”

“He is not,” she said, taking a slightly lackluster bite of dried fruit. “He accompanied our children and elders going north to escape the White Legs. But our grave tenders had heard a rumor, that this group fought a White Leg band as they tried to meet the Canaanites who fled their city. Several of our hunters were killed.”

“Daniel said. He mentioned none of the children were hurt,” he said, slowly. He had also been tense about it, evasive. “But he didn’t say what happened to any of the others.”

Waking Cloud looked sharply at him, frowning, and her jaw set into anger. “He _knew_ of this? And I was not told? Daniel has never lied to us before, why…?”

“That you know of,” Marius muttered, mostly to himself. He looked a little guilty as the two of them stared up at him, further back on the ledge, and shrugged. “Look, if he’s willing to jerk us around, he’s not above keeping things from your people. Like how he’s convinced you all that the Father in the Caves is…”

He trailed off as Damianus made a face. Now wasn’t the time—and broaching the subject at all felt like treading a mine field. But Cloud turned to face him, undeterred. “What of the Father in the Caves?”

Marius reached up to rub the back of his head, looking a little desperately at Damianus. Before Marius could blurt out something damning, Damianus said, “As far as we can tell, Daniel’s Father and your Father in the Cave are…different. That the Canaanites’ god is something from their holy books, and the Father…” _was a normal man once_ felt like a betrayal. “Is something from Zion,” he finished instead.

Her eyebrows had risen, looking between them, and Cloud finally put her fingers to her temples, leaning on her arms. She muttered something in the Sorrows’ tongue, but fell silent a long moment as the two of them sat in something like guilt—despite the fact that she deserved to know the truth.

Almost ready to prompt her again, Waking Cloud looked up at him under her brow. “You are not religious men,” she said, with a bit of bluntness to her voice that Damianus hadn’t heard before. “I do not think you understand the Father, or the Canaanites’ ways. I hope he shows you the path to salvation, one day. But now, as we stand to war with a terrible foe, I cannot think of it. Or burden us with worry, of the _maybe_ that my husband is lost.”

“If he lied to you once—” Marius started, but Cloud held up a finger, and he fell silent.

“We have duties,” she said, her face sober. “I have not taken them seriously enough—you were right, my young friend. We should have acted on some things sooner. I will trust you in the ways of war, the White Legs, and the Legion, but you do not know Daniel or the Father—even if I think I will have a _long_ talk with him, when my people are safe. But I will not hear it when we must focus on other things.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Damianus said, softly. Marius muttered something similar, eyes down. After a stretch of silence where they prepared to move on, the two of them let themselves be led north again, to reunite with the Sorrows.

The valley seemed eerily empty, with the tribes gathering themselves for the coming fight. It was almost worse than having to evade a White Leg scout party every ten minutes—to Damianus, it just made the wait worse, like every minute they might have spent fighting was being saved to hit them all at once.

Thus he nearly jumped out of his skin when someone hissed at them from a shadow. Follows-Chalk beckoned them off the path and into the hollow of a standing stone. “War party up there,” he hissed. “They took a bunch of our warriors captive, I don’t know why. Probably going to do something terrible to them.”

Damianus just tipped his head a little at him—it was more than probable. “How many of them? And how many White Legs?”

“Four of ours, and five White Legs,” Chalk said, shifting his weight anxiously. “Means we got a fighting chance with the bunch of us, neh?”

"What do you think?" Damianus glanced aside to Marius, who looked away, knuckles whitening on the strap of his pack. He tried to catch his eye, but Marius wouldn't meet his gaze. Stomach sinking, Damianus filed it away for something to discuss later. A lot of things needed to be discussed later, maybe. A lot of moments like this one that were becoming a pattern.

All Marius did was shrug. "If they have prisoners, we need to free them," he said dully.

"How are they holding them? Tied up?" Damianus asked, turning back to Follows-Chalk. "I like our odds with four on four, but better if we can get the captives' support."

"They have them in some cage, at this old taboo place, what did you call them? Ranger station," Chalk said, describing the shape of it with a square drawn in the air by his fingers, "locked up tight, I think."

"Marius can pick locks," he said carefully, looking his way again. Marius looked more firmly in his direction, without quite meeting his eye, as if his earrings were especially interesting at the moment. "If you can? We'll run a distraction. Chalk, you can provide cover fire while Cloud and I rush them to get their attention, and Marius slips up to this cage and frees the captives."

He hesitated, then nodded. "I can do that."

Damianus nodded back. At a gesture from Waking Cloud, Chalk took the lead, slipping up the slope that led around the ridge. Low rocks studded the ground up here, and they kept these between them and the decrepit ranger station at the top of the hill, creeping low in the dry grasses and behind the standing stones. They stopped and watched, barely poking their heads out of cover, as Chalk pointed out each of the White Legs he'd spotted—two up above, in the station proper, two more poking about at the barred iron doors shutting up the storage bay below the station, where Chalk had said the prisoners were held. Taunting their captives.

"Have to get their attention," Damianus whispered, squinting. "Waking Cloud, you can take the stairs faster than I can." He looked to her. "I'll take the two on the ground, you get upstairs and get the two up there. Chalk will start shooting to scatter them, and we'll close the distance, draw them as fast as we can away from the bars and give Marius room to pick the lock, get us some additional support if things go sideways. Chalk, you stick close to Marius and keep shooting at them, make them try and take cover instead of getting a bead on us in the rush."

He looked to each of them in turn for nods of assent, but Waking Cloud shook her head. "I cannot go in, it is forbidden," she reminded him, and he nearly cursed.

"Fine," he said, with more heat than he meant to, then softer, "Fine, that's okay. I'll take the stairs, you take the ones on the ground." Which meant Damianus wouldn't get any support inside the station—the captives wouldn't come into the taboo place either, he realized. He'd be alone up there in tight quarters, with two opponents who could see his approach and prepare for him, and no way to know what they were carrying.

They moved to position themselves, Damianus and Cloud braced to start running in headlong when the first shot was fired. He cast one last glance at Marius in the moment before Chalk pulled the trigger, and saw him staring worriedly back, no doubt doing the same math Damianus was. Damianus managed a quick smile before the signal.

At the first round of fire, he dodged out from behind cover, rushing the stairs as the two White Legs at the barred doors started to scatter from the sound. From the corner of his eye he saw Waking Cloud sprinting to give chase as they ran around the corner of the building. He took the stairs as quickly as he could with his bad leg, and the two White Legs at the top of the shack turned when they spotted him cresting the walkway, forcing Damianus to skid to a stop and backpedal from a wild spray of storm drum fire, nearly tumbling back down the stairs.

The two of them backstepped as another gunshot rang out from Chalk's position, closer than the last; he'd be hard pressed to get a bead on them from the ground, but the sound was all that was needed to make them wary, keep them hesitant while watching out for the gunman. Still they were ready when Damianus lunged, and he ducked another spray, took a glancing slice across his shoulder from a hatchet on the other side as he stabbed forward with his machete. He caught one of them in the hip with the impact of metal on bone. The man screamed, and swung at him again; Damianus jerked back, just out of range, and the ax slammed into the wood frame of the ranger station. He played that game a while, darting in and back, trying to get a shot in between the hatchet and the gunfire without getting torn apart. But they were in a defensive position and watching his every move as he advanced and they fell back, away from the gunfire from Chalk. There was a scream below but none of them dared look down to see who from.

Finally, pushed to the back of the little room, one of the White Legs pressed Damianus right back, lunging in with the ax chopping diagonally at him, and he backpedaled desperately to get away from its swing. Damianus fell back, watching for an opening, any opening. He might have to risk a serious blow to lunge in, at this rate, saved from bullets only by the hatchet-wielding White Leg now standing between him and the gunner. He was clenching his teeth in preparation for the worst when a shout came from behind him and the White Legs glanced past his shoulder. Damianus didn't turn to look; he took the narrow window of opportunity for all it was worth, diving forward and seizing the haft of the man's ax to lock it between them as he stabbed under the ribs. In, then up, pulling it out with a sick sound he barely registered as the woman turned her gun on him. He ducked low and to the side as she pulled the trigger and she followed; he felt a bullet pierce his thigh. As he clutched it and shouted, another gunshot rang out, this time from behind him, and her head blossomed open as she fell.

Damianus turned, expecting Marius, but found Chalk framed by the doorway, his pistol still raised. "Hoo, that was close," he said, eyes wide.

"Dixie?" Footsteps thundered up the stairs, and Marius came barging up behind Chalk, his own eyes shooting wide at the sight of blood on him, and he shouldered past. "Babe, you're—"

"Fine," he said, sitting down on a nearby chair and clutching at the wound in his thigh. He took a better look at it. "Not as bad as it looks. Just a glancing shot. Do we have more of that datura antidote?" he asked. "Got a scrape off a hatchet."

“Here,” Marius said, subdued, and Damianus reached for it, holding his hand over the bottle for a moment. He could feel the tremor going up his arm, and Marius refused to look at him, wiggling out of his grip and pressing the bottle into it.

Before he could say anything, more footsteps were coming up the tower, Waking Cloud and the freed Dead Horses. Follows-Chalk spoke with them as Damianus downed the antidote, Marius standing beside him in the cramped room, rubbing his shoulder with a sort of nervous tension. Some agreement seemed to be made between them, and Chalk nodded as the oldest of the men said something sober to the two of them, ending in a little bow, and led the others out.

“He thanks you for saving him and his warriors,” Chalk said as they left. “Thought they’d be left out as crow bait.”

“Are you heading back with them?” Damianus asked, sheathing the last of his knives.

Follows-Chalk started to nod, then leaned back on his heels. “Actually, I found more of those caves nearby. Didn’t go in, though—wanted you to show me more of those traps, before I got my nose shot off, poking it in one.”

“’Those caves’ being holy sites?” Waking Cloud said, a little archly.

“They’re just full of—” Chalk started, losing steam as he looked at her face. Hesitantly, he went on, “Important meaning for the Sorrows?”

“And punishment for those who trespass,” she said, folding her arms. After a moment, she pressed her lips into a line, and said, “But Daniel did mention the caves may hold the map he needs, that the Sorrows need to leave Zion. I am but a midwife, and cannot give a blessing, but I will not argue if you mean to search for it.”

“We’ll be careful,” Damianus said, gesturing for Follows-Chalk to lead. He pointed them back south—the way they had come, again, and he heard Marius sigh. But they made good time, Waking Cloud taking point with them and suggesting more discreet paths, so close to the White Leg camps.

Chalk tried not to look too excited as they approached, and even bowed a little to Waking Cloud, who took up position to guard the entrance. As they passed out of her hearing and into the dark, Damianus took the lead, letting Marius hang back again and tell Chalk about the terminal they had found in the Narrows. He listened soberly to the account of the coughing men and the survivalist’s war of attrition, only interrupting as Damianus hesitated at what seemed to be a thick wall of vegetation blocking the path ahead.

“Be careful here,” he said, whispering. “Plants only grow in the dark like this when there’s spitter plants and green men around. They hide in them, so watch your step.”

They looked at each other and nodded, hands on weapons. As they crept forward, looking for traps, Damianus felt Marius reach over, taking his left hand, and gave it a ferocious squeeze. He gave it right back, the memory of it shaking in his still fresh, and tried to hold his worry for a quieter moment.

***

Even with Chalk’s warnings, they didn’t run into any of the strange plants, or green men—but then again, the door Marius had picked open had led right into the cave’s living chamber. Marius saw Follows-Chalk giving one of the side passages a worried look, and said, “We’ll be in and out. There’s rarely anything useful outside of the camps, in these caves.”

“If you say so,” Chalk said, with a little forced brightness. “But look over your shoulders some. They’re quiet, the green men.”

The chamber was lit with the blue glow of fungus, and even further back, the green of a terminal. Most of the fungus lit up distinct patches around the camp, like they had been carefully cultivated to light the workbenches. As they may well have been, Marius thought, passing them for a raised living platform and letting the other two start searching the cave as he went to the terminal.

He held his breath a moment until the menus came up—there was always that chance the data was corrupted, the machine damaged, or even that their friend hadn’t left anything for them. Given some of the gaps in the entries it wasn’t impossible that some had been deleted, given his anger with himself. Marius’ hand slowed a little as he wiped grime from the screen, something like grief rising up at the thought of the man in the caves erasing his last legacy from the world.

Dixie was at his elbow a moment later, shaking his head when Marius raised an eyebrow. “No maps. Could there be anything on there?”

Marius shrugged. “He’s never used the terminals for anything but a diary, but…”

“We’ll only know if we read it,” Follows-Chalk said, leaning in to read along.

There was no map, or mention of one. Just the man’s bitter satisfaction at the remaining cannibal vault dwellers leaving—save one, a woman caught in one of the man’s traps, and not sick and coughing like the rest of them. Sylvie, who came to trust him, who had hope for the future. Marius kept reading, trying not to let his voice break on the man’s joy and fear—and regret, in the words left for his first wife—palpable even centuries gone, as he wrote of her pregnancy.

But the final entry, for 2101, was brief. Marius had to make himself read it out. “Baby was breech. Would’ve been a son. Michael.”

There was a soft, “No,” from Dixie, beside him, as thought these people weren’t long dead already. Marius paused to nudge him with his shoulder, leaning on one another for comfort.

There wasn’t much more, the man’s will gone, despair taking over. Marius read it aloud, dutifully, before backing out to the menu with a heavy heart.

“You think that’s it?” Chalk said, his voice low. He wiped a hand down his face, adjusting his hat as he tried to hide it. “Not how I really hoped his story would end.”

“There’s no body in here,” Dixie said, looking over the cave. “And the chamber was sealed. If he did…do it…it was somewhere else.”

They declined to search the rest of the tunnels, retreating the way they had come to tell Waking Cloud they needed to move on. She raised her eyebrows as they did. “You have found _something,_ to have such looks on your faces.”

None of them were eager to speak up, and Marius finally said, “The Father in the Caves lived there once. He left a…a message about some of the hardships he faced.”

Her face softened a little, as Chalk took the lead. “He teaches us of grace in despair,” she said, quietly. “Something we need, today.”

Marius tried not to grimace, the phrase _I think I can finally do it_ still turning over in his head. But Dixie had stepped between them, asking her, “Are you doing alright?”

Cloud sighed heavily as they walked, and neither of them pressed her as they approached the next paint-marked cave mouth. “Go, and tell me what you find,” was all she said as she waved them inside.

“What’s bothering her?” Follows-Chalk whispered, as they filed down the narrow entrance tunnel.

“Daniel,” Dixie said, ducking to pass under a row of low-hanging stalactites. On the other side, he craned to look up at the vaulted cavern they’d entered. “He’s keeping secrets from her.”

“Oh.” He rubbed the end of his nose a little. “Well, I got no say in that, but I think he—”

There was a faint hiss from one of the corners of the cave, and Chalk yelped as something splattered against his back. Dixie was already moving as Marius tried to orient on the sound, seeing a massive set of jaws moving in the shadows. Fear jolted through him as he followed, yanking Dixie’s sleeve to slow him and kicking at a pile of unnaturally green plants. The bear trap buried in them snapped shut at the impact, and Dixie shied back, picking his way towards the spitter plant with much greater caution.

A few more lurked in the corners, but all it took was a quick slash of a machete to sever the man-trap jaws from the plants’ slender stalks. Marius looked away from one as it continued trying to bite, toothy thorns scraping on the stone floor. Regrouping to make sure none of them were injured—Follows-Chalk willingly let them clean up and apply healing powder to the graze on his back—before pressing on.

A locked door pointed them to where they needed to go, and a moment’s work with a lockpick saw them inside. The usual raised platform was on the edge of the cavern, and the three of them looked at each other before approaching. Dixie hesitated, turning the light of his Pip-boy more fully ahead, the light catching on what looked like the foot of a sleeping bag.

Something was laying on it. Marius’ gut knotted, that this was it, and he almost laughed that somehow seeing _this_ body after only a few days of hoping was going to be worse than—

Dixie sighed explosively as the light washed over it. Some animal had ripped into the stuffing of the bedding, and the shadow of the duffel bag next to it had only given the illusion of a body. Follows-Chalk _did_ laugh, thumping them each on the back as best he could. “What, were you scared?” he said, but his grin was a little feeble, and the relief obvious in his voice.

Marius paused to put a hand on Dixie’s shoulder as he sat to dig through the bag, and he shrugged it up to press his cheek against the back of it. He gave a little squeeze before pulling a folding chair closer to the terminal on the platform, gingerly testing his weight on the ancient plastic webbing as he poked the terminal’s power button.

It took its time warming up, and beside him, he saw Dixie pull out his glasses to have a look at some papers that had been tucked away. “Got something, babe?”

Dixie barely managed to bite down on his grin, even as Chalk put a hand over his smile in a deliberately obvious gesture. Marius stuck is tongue out at him as he reached for the keyboard.

The man had found ghouls, trying to enter the valley; feral ones that he put out of their misery in a week of emotionless entries. There was a five-year gap between that entry and the next, in 2113—and the man’s sixtieth birthday, where, drunk and empty, he said goodbye to Zion and everyone he’d lost.

Only for there to be an entry the next day. “’Fucking didn't do it, c—” Marius couldn’t stop the slight catch in the words as he read aloud, “—coward as usual.’”

Ten more years before the next entry. “’24 of them, half boys, half girls. Youngest is 8 maybe, oldest 13-14. Dirty and scrawny, been on foot a long time. Children's crusade,’” he read. They had come from outside the valley, from a place they called the School—somewhere they’d feared. “’Principal better not show up or I'll blow his goddamn head off. I can still shoot straight.’”

Dixie huffed a surprised laugh, and Marius found himself almost smiling. Whoever he had been… He was a good man, and far better than he thought of himself. Almost gently, Marius reached to shut the screen down again.

***

Damianus held out the folded map to Waking Cloud. She said something soft in her own language as she turned it over, then in English, “This is the one we need?”

“The one Daniel was looking for,” he said, watching her unfold the brittle paper just enough to see inside. “He should be able to find the Sorrows a route to safety.”

She nodded, apparently speechless, before tucking it away in her bag. Her eyes were steady and serious as she looked at the three of them. “The Father in the Caves has provided once again,” she said, and glanced away a moment before adding, “Tell me. What is it like in those caves?”

Damianus glanced at Marius, who licked his lips before saying, “Well, dangerous. A lot of traps were left in them.”

Waking Cloud nodded, still a little lost in thought. “And Daniel? What would he say of them?”

Beside them, Follows-Chalk had shifted his weight, looking out over the valley. Damianus couldn’t blame him. “He would probably say the Father in the Caves, and the Father he talks about, are not the same.”

“As you have said.” She touched the pouch at her side, thoughtfully. “And would that be another lie?” she said, almost to herself. Damianus didn’t reply, but felt for Marius’ hand, squeezing it tight as she thought. She shook her head a little, gesturing them away from the cave. “Whatever comes of it will come _after_ my people are safe. We have time to reach the Narrows by sundown, if we are swift.”

“We’ll, uh… We were going to find our own way back,” Marius said, his hand gone a little clammy in Damianus’. “There’s something we’d like to check on, nearby.”

She glanced at Chalk, who shrugged a little. “I could stick with you until we hit the Aerie. Four eyes are better than two, neh?”

“I would welcome your company,” Cloud said, a little formally. To the two of them, she added, “Are you certain? This is no time to wander this place.”

“We’re sure,” Damianus said. “It’s something we have to deal with alone.”

She raised an eyebrow, but gave them a little bow of farewell. But as she turned away, she hesitated. “The traps in these caves… Did you set them behind you, as you left? So the White Legs do not desecrate them?” All three of them shared guilty looks, and she almost smiled. “Then perhaps, as a disciple of the Father, he will forgive me for entering them.”

“They showed me how to disarm them, safely,” Follows-Chalk offered. “If you want help.”

“I would be grateful,” she said, a little more warmly. Reaching out to take the boys’ hand between hers, she smiled at them both. “You have done brave things for the Sorrows. I will be forever grateful for the help you gave us in these dark times. Grasas, na’ne. For all you have done.”

“Thank you for helping _us_ ,” Marius said. “We wouldn’t have survived this long without your guidance.”

“As for what you find in those caves…” Damianus started. Cloud’s smile faded a little. “If you go looking, it might be hard to take at first. But I think… The Father is no less important for it. And Daniel has no right to decide anything for you.”

Her expression was worried, but trying to come back to serenity as she let them go. Follows-Chalk stepped in as she did, grabbing them both in a hug. “I gotta go back to the Dead Horses camp, things are gonna happen real soon,” he said, slapping them both on the back. “I had a lot of fun with you guys, you know? Keep yourselves safe. I wanna find you someday after this, when I go see the rest of the world.”

“You’re leaving your people?” Damianus said, as he stepped back.

“Not forever,” Chalk said, pulling at the lanyard around his neck. The needle of the compass swung to point north. “But I have _so many_ questions I won’t learn an answer to here—or from Joshua Graham. I’ll find them out for myself, and I’ll tell you about them, someday.”

They didn’t linger on farewells much longer, knowing the danger of letting their attention wander. The two of them turned south, while Follows-Chalk and Waking Cloud discussed their route quietly, gesturing into the valley.

Damianus looked over his shoulder one last time as their path dropped, putting them out of sight. He reached into his shirt, pulling out the other map. “I still think we should have given her this one.”

“We don’t even know what’s there,” Marius said, taking it from him. Unfolded, it was a map of Zion Valley, with markings and annotations done in a firm, angular hand. The man in the caves had found pen to write in, at least, keeping his notes from fading, but Damianus could see the way it changed over the decades, growing more spidery, with the faintest tremor in the ink.

One of these latest marks was a drawing over what the original map called a scenic area, and he had written in as the Red Gate. The drawing was of a skull, surrounded in flowers, carefully cross-hatched and colored in, with so much detail it was hard to make out—more than any other of the doodles on the map, simple outlines of the flora and fauna that grew throughout Zion. He had mulled over this one, thought about it, taken a long time to overwork it as he did.

There were more markings on the edge of the map, arrows with names like ‘Toquerville’ and ‘SLC’, and notes about the terrain. They had both noticed them, and with a look, knew they wouldn’t be taking those routes out. Not yet.

The route to the Red Gate was clear—if any White Legs were scouting the area, they had been driven away by the yao guai that roamed around it. Damianus gestured for Marius to stay low, going from cover to cover as they approached the arch in the living rock. There was nothing at the base of it, and hearing the snuffling of a bear as they searched, Marius leaned back on the stone, linking his fingers together to give Damianus a boost and begin climbing.

There was a precarious path up the broad pillar that made up half the arch, and Damianus took his time, moving by inches to make sure his footing was secure and his handholds wouldn’t come free. Glancing down, Marius was a little gray, but had his eyes fixed on the path Damianus had taken, easing himself upward. When they reached the peak, Damianus grabbed his hand to drag him over the ledge, and Marius lay there a moment, face-down on the stone. Damianus crouched next to him, stroking his hair back. “Hey, handsome, are you alright?”

“Dizzy,” he said, rolling his head to the side. “Heights have just sucked, since…” He touched the scars on the side of his head. Damianus rubbed his fingers through the awkward scruff of hair that had grown over them, planting a kiss on his temple as he breathed. When he was ready to rise, Damianus let him lean on him, even as he pointed down the sloping top of the arch towards the cliff. “Another duffel bag? That’s good, imagine getting this far to…” Marius trailed off as he looked again, and Damianus squeezed his hand before starting to walk.

They knelt next to the man’s remains, propped peacefully against the stone. Plants had grown up in the cracks around the skeleton, ranging from hardy little flowers sprouting from gravel, to a low tree that had kept its leaves even through winter, shading the grave site from the sun overhead. It didn’t look all that different from the drawing he had left on the map, truth be told, and Damianus felt tears spill from his eyes.

Of course he hadn’t survived another hundred years, to meet them. It had been a stupid little hope—not even a hope, but a yearning to talk to him, to someone who _understood_ …

“It was peaceful,” Marius said, voice choked as he rested his arm over Damianus’ shoulders. It would have been, he realized, the man’s hands still almost folded in his lap, head resting back on the stones to look up at the sky. Something about it made him sigh, a little of the pain fading, and he reached across the body and into the bag.

Marius didn’t stop him, taking the holotape recorder Damianus handed him. “That’s long-dead,” Marius said, turning it over. “I’ll need your—wait, no, I packed mine but didn’t think to—”

“I get you that nice gift and you won’t even wear it?” Damianus said, trying to tease through the lump in his throat.

“I’m not in the habit yet,” Marius said, reaching into his pack. He let out a breath as he popped the broken player open and delicately removed the tape. Looking to Damianus, he waited for his nod before inserting it to the Pip-boy. Playing with the dials a moment, he said, “2124. That’s the only year on this one, and what… Fifty years after the bombs fell? Fifty years in Zion?” He had to stop and compose himself, and Damianus sat more comfortably with his leg brace, reaching out to rub his shoulder.

“’January 2nd. I've been leaving notes for them, and gifts. They like the books. Started with stories but moved on to weapons manuals, medical books, practical stuff…’” Damianus closed his eyes as Marius read, imagining the voice coming from his other side, like one of the ghosts Marius was so convinced of sat with them…

“’I tell them to read and to learn and to make the most of their new home. I tell them I'm giving them Zion as a gift to make up for all the’…” Marius faltered. “’For the sorrows of their lives so far and all the sorrows man has visited on man.’” He paused to swallow, going on a little more strongly, “’I tell them to be kind to each other and modest. I tell them never to hurt each other but that if someone else comes along and tries to hurt them to strike back with righteous anger. Stuff like that. I sign every note "The Father".’”

“I thought that might be it,” Damianus said, wiping his face. “We _need_ to bring this to Waking Cloud, as soon as we can.”

“You want to tell her her god was just some old man, all along?”

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I think she needs to know the truth, that Daniel doesn’t care about what they actually believe.”

Marius hesitated, but nodded. He looked back down at the screen, taking a sharp breath before continuing to read. “’January 18th. Have I mentioned that I'm dying?’” They both nearly broke down as he read the rest of the entry, the man’s love for these children like they were his own, his calm resolve that they should remember the Father, not the flesh-and-blood man.

They leaned on each other as they cried, and Marius suddenly laughed through it. “The last one’s a recording,” he said, searching his pocket for a bit of rag to blow his nose. “That was nice of him, I don’t think I could…”

Damianus almost laughed too, feeling his face pull into a grimace. They took a moment to hold each other, kissing the tears away, until Marius nodded into the side of Damianus’ neck and set the Pip-boy next to the man’s remains and pressed play.

_“It’s January 23rd, cold enough that I won't last long on the high mound up next to Red Gate. I think I've got enough breath left in me to make it. I'll just lie down and stare at the sky. Feels right.”_

The man’s voice was…old. Not just in the way the tape crackled and spat, or how he paused to puff for air, but with a worn, almost reedy tone. But Damianus could hear the warmth in it, his own tears rising up long ago as he talked about the children in the valley. _“I hope they'll do well…”_

The two of them clung to each other, listening to his pride and love of them… and his regrets. _“Lied to you, Char. And Alex. And Sylvie. Told you I'd be with you forever. But I wouldn't go back and unsay it once if I could. What was the point of it all? So many failures.”_ He paused to cough, a wet, racking sound, and went on more roughly, _“But I never forgot your face. Or Little Nut's. Or—sorry—Sylvie's. They used to say that happened after a while but it never did for me._

_“Maybe the only point of all that living was to keep those pictures in my head going for as long as I could. It was the only life I could give you. Not a day went by without.”_

Beside him, Marius was nearly bent in half, holding his breath to keep from sobbing. Damianus struggled to keep his own breathing quiet, to keep listening. Fifty years, remembering them…

 _“I wish them well. It's been a gift to me, at the end of it all, to behold innocence.”_ There was a pause. _“My name is Randall Dean Clark. I lived from February 5th, 2053, until January 2124.”_ Another pause, and a shaky sigh.

_“Goodbye, Zion.”_

The holotape clicked off as they sat there, clutching at each other and sobbing. Damianus buried his face in Marius’ shoulder, squeezing him so hard it hurt. The man’s—Randall Clark’s—voice echoed in his head, his calm acceptance of his fate, after years of struggle, of pain, of loss. That there had still been the faintest smile in his voice, as he said goodbye.

That despite it all he had found, or made, peace with himself.

Their crying slowed, as much exhaustion as a sort of calm, reflecting on all they’d learned of him. Marius leaned back, cupping Damianus’ face in one hand as he wiped his cheeks with a clean cloth. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he said, voice still clogged. He sniffed hard, taking the rag when Marius offered and blowing his nose. “I’m alright,” he said, a little slowly, surprised to find it was nearly true. _I never forgot your face._ He had kept that little comfort for so long, longer than Damianus had even—

Would he remember Ridley’s face that long? _Did_ he, even now?

Marius was rubbing his fingers through his hair, pulling him back to the moment. “We should move on,” he said, still wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. “We’ll need to get to the Narrows soon.”

Damianus nodded, looking back at the skeleton beside them. The duffel bag was still in good shape, and he climbed to his feet, pulling the drawstring opening wider.

“Come on,” Marius said, not rising to follow. “It’s one thing to take supplies from the caves, but this is…”

“I just want to look.” There wasn’t much, after all—Clark very deliberately hadn’t come up here to camp. A survival knife had been tucked into a side pocket, a few boxes of ammunition had been left in the bottom, but the largest item… Damianus drew it out, reverently.

The rifle wasn’t dissimilar to the ones the NCR soldiers carried, a medium-barreled assault weapon. But it had seen fifty years of protecting Zion, and who knew who where or how long before that, the wooden grip held on with metal clamps. Words had been carved into the stock, rough but readable.

“Dixie,” Marius said, uncomfortable. “Look, we’ve had to rob corpses before, but this…” He glanced at the skeleton, like it might finish the sentence. “This feels wrong.”

“Whatever ghost he had is long gone," Damianus said, not irreverently. He ran his thumb over the roughly carved letters on the butt of the rifle. "Probably somewhere better. Wherever it is you go, I mean. Not sure I know anymore," he added. Marius just nodded. Damianus was raised on the belief in places like Erebus and Elysium, but he shook his head, casting off those ideas. "But he was a good man. He deserved that. And wherever he is, he's not using this anymore. I don't think he'd want it to go to waste." He held out the rifle somberly toward Marius, who reeled back.

"We can't—" he began, stricken. "Dixie, we can't know what he would have wanted."

"Sure we can. He told us, didn't he?" He nodded towards the skeleton, sitting peacefully nearby. "He wanted to protect people. The children. The Sorrows. He fought for so long with this gun, I think he'd want it to keep protecting people."

Marius stared at the rifle in his hands, his own hands running back over his hair as he regarded it. As he hesitated, Damianus gestured again with the rifle, urging him to take it. "Come on," he said softly. "Yours is run down anyway. This looks like it's still in good condition, it probably just needs cleaning."

"Dixie I'm not—" His voice broke a little as he stood, jamming his hands in his pockets. He looked to his feet. "I haven't earned a gun like that. I'm not..."

There was silence between them for a moment. This was... something. Damianus was getting better at knowing when it was something delicate, something to do with things he couldn't understand about Marius, not fully. Things that were for Marius and not for him… And it was something he needed to get used to. He drew in a breath and, carefully, asked: "How do you earn a gun?"

"You prove you can handle the responsibility," Marius all but whispered. "It was mostly something the hunters did. They’d do something for the—" He trailed off there, but Damianus nodded. Marius looked up at him under his brow, and Damianus watched him back.

"Like killing Caesar? And Vulpes?" Damianus asked patiently. "Two men alone facing down the Legion and coming out alive, and you killed their top agent by yourself. That doesn't earn a gun? What did other people have to do to earn theirs?"

Marius opened his mouth and closed it, shut his eyes. As Damianus watched, another tear rolled down his cheek, and he looked away. That one wasn't for him, not for him to ask about, to know. That one was for someone else. That was private.

"I think you've earned it as much as anyone," he said to the air at his side, giving Marius a moment to collect himself unobserved. "I think he'd say that, too, if he knew you. And I think he'd want you to carry it." Damianus held the rifle out to him again, and Marius, hands shaking, reached to take it. He almost wasn't ready for the weight of it, but Damianus held it steady until he'd found the strength to hold it himself. "It suits you, I think."

Marius hefted it up a little higher, feeling the balance of it, his eyes tracing the words written on it. 'Stop' it said on the one side, and Damianus could guess it said the same on the other, in a language he didn't recognize. Its owner never went _looking_ for a fight, just wanted to be left alone. But he was ready when it came to him anyway, again and again.

"The Survivalist's Rifle," Damianus said, voice full of awe as he watched Marius holding it.

"Randall Clark's Gun," Marius corrected in a reverential whisper. As if completing some ritual. “For… Guardianship, and…persistence?” He shrugged, almost looking bashful. “I’ll come up with a better one.”

"Randall Clark's Gun," Damianus agreed, biting down the urge to ask more. Marius just kept staring at the weapon, and he added, “We should make sure that holotape is safe, and put the map back where we found it.”

Marius sighed, the spell broken. “Yeah,” was all he said, lifting the gun a little. “Yeah. If the Sorrows come back here…”

Damianus nodded again, taking his hand briefly before moving to finish their work.

***

Using the paths Waking Cloud and Follows-Chalk had shown them, they made it to the fishing lodge just after sunset. The valley had been eerily quiet as they walked the high trails, even the animals seeming to hold their breaths with a war on the horizon. They had spotted a few torches as they went, but for the most part, all sides of Zion were drawing together and consolidating before the chaos that was bound to come.

The night was crisp and cold, leaving the stars overhead all the brighter. Marius caught himself staring up at them as they approached the lodge, and Dixie jogged his elbow a little, getting his attention. “We can stargaze once we know it’s safe.”

Marius bumped him with his hip as they walked, but followed him as they did a circuit of the building, checking for signs of entry or anyone lurking in the shadows. Marius peered closely at the lock on the door, but the smear of machine grease he’d left on it was undisturbed—he hadn’t expected any lockpicks in the White Leg ranks, but it never hurt to play things safe.

The inside of the lodge was quiet as Dixie started the fire, and Marius rounded up whatever scraps of meat and vegetables they had left in the fridge. What flour was left saw them turned into a sort of fritter, and Dixie hovered appreciatively at his side as Marius fished them out of the oil. “That’s hot,” he said as he dropped it on the plate, and Dixie closed his hand like he hadn’t been ready to scoop it right up. Marius stuck his tongue out at him, halfheartedly, and just watched his face as Dixie grinned back, the firelight painting interesting shadows across his face.

Slinging a blanket over his shoulder, Marius stood. “Come on,” he said, gesturing him to follow. “You wanted to go stargazing?”

Dixie took his hand willingly, and with a little effort, made their way to the roof of the lodge. Testing their weight on the beams, they snuggled together in the crook of the L-shaped building, leaning on each other as they nibbled on their dinner. Wiping his fingers clean on his jeans, Marius pointed up at the stars. “You know how to find the pole star, right?”

“No, I did all my courier work by luck,” Dixie said, giving him a nudge. “It’s in the handle of the Little Dipper.”

Marius just nudged him back. Dixie opened his mouth to sass him more, but even on impulse Marius was quicker, popping a bite of fritter into mis mouth. His fingers just brushed his lips as he did, and, surprised at himself, Marius was reluctant to pull away. He coughed a little, gesturing back up at the sky. “We called it the Bear, or Chen’s Hood,” Marius said, not looking at his face, but sure his own flush was visible in the dark. “And the pole was Chen’s Star. He was the first… First Walker. First of our tribe, as much as we could have one.”

Shrugging the blanket up higher on their shoulders, Dixie held out another bite of food. Trying to keep a dumb grin off his face, Marius let him feed it to him, leaning into him as they looked up again. “Do you remember more of them?”

“A few,” Marius said. “We were taught these before we could read and write. It was more important we could find our way. Like the Hunter, how the rightmost star on his belt rises almost due east, and sets due west.” He pointed again. “Between him and the pole star, that dark area, with the ring around it? That’s the Lake. So a little ways from it…there, I think, that little cluster there is the uh… I think Pile of Bodies, more or less. And between them is the Boat, that ferries souls to the City of the Dead, in the middle of the Lake.”

There was a pause, where Dixie rested his head against his. “’Pile of Bodies’,” was all he said.

“I didn’t name it!” Marius said, putting an arm around him in the cold. “There’s stories about heroes going there, tricking the ferryman into letting them enter as they went after the spirit of someone they loved.”

“Do you remember any?”

“Not well.” Marius shrugged. “We…My brother and I…we’d look at the stars and make them up, sometimes.”

Marius didn’t realize how long he’d stared until Dixie tugged at his shirt, having him lay beside him, resting his head on Dixie’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. A little chilly,” Marius said, wrapping the blanket a little tighter over them.

He felt Dixie shake his head, tapping a finger on Marius’ temple as he toyed with his hair. “Are you _alright?_ ”

Marius took a breath, ready to deny it again, but it died in his throat.

“I’ve noticed,” Dixie said quietly, his voice deeper than normal as it echoed in his chest. “The way you get after a fight. You’ve frozen up a few times. I know I can’t make you talk about it, but…” He left the implicit question hanging, fingers still stroking at the fuzz of hair on the sides of his head.

_Lie. Deny it. You’re better than this._

The part of him that was lost in the softness of Dixie’s voice, in the feeling of standing at a threshold, spoke up as well. _What makes you more of a coward? Being afraid or avoiding it?_

He moved his hand from Dixie’s waist to his chest, feeling his heartbeat, and tried to breathe in time with him. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but it…” He fought down a little shudder. “All it took was two weeks of thinking that we’d be _free_. Free of, of having to kill people. Two weeks that I got used to not having to worry, if you or I was going to die every morning. Two weeks of being normal people, to ruin me for anything else.”

With his throat locked up, Marius just shifted to watch the stars. There were no different than the ones in the Mojave, logically, but they felt…different. Unreal, somehow, with how brightly they shone and how densely packed they had become.

Or maybe it was the warmth of watching them with someone’s arms around him, pulling him in tight and kissing his head. “You’re not ruined,” Dixie murmured into his hair. “You’ve been scared of so much for so long. Maybe it’s that…you’ve just had time to realize it.”

He lifted his hand, letting it flop against Dixie’s chest. “Does it matter? All it means is you can’t rely on me. What if I lock up again, against the White Legs? Get myself killed? Or...” Marius had to swallow. “If you end up fighting for both of us, and… I will never forgive myself if you…”

He pulled him closer again, stroking his hair back as he threw a leg over his. "I'm not going to die on you,” Dixie murmured. “And I'm sure as hell not going to let you die."

"You can't promise that."

"Are you kidding? I found you. I'm the luckiest man alive. And I'll fight like hell to keep this going."

Marius couldn’t reply, just holding him tighter as he tried to hold back tears. He didn’t deserve that—Dixie didn’t deserve to keep fighting, after trying to leave it behind, and Marius didn’t deserve—

“We can go west, after this,” Dixie said into this hair. “I still know people out there, and we can start over. Go north up the coast, where the Legion can’t find us. I know how they operate in that region, and how we can avoid them.”

Marius’s throat was too tight to respond. Dixie went on, “Arroyo is safe. We never went that far, even though I wanted to see it. We can hide in one of the survivalist’s caves until the White Legs move through, send word to the Sorrows once they have. We can run away, and be free men, on our own terms.”

He nodded into his chest. They could do it. The White Legs wouldn’t last long here, without other tribes to raid, and they’d move on…

…Much like how the Legion would march across the Mojave.

The thought made him open his eyes, even if he couldn’t look at Dixie. “Are we doing the right thing? Helping the Sorrows run away instead of facing down the White Legs?”

Dixie just kept running his fingers through his hair, gently unpicking the tie on his ponytail. “Yes,” he said, his voice firm. “It’s… There’s a phrase, ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’. It took me a long time to understand it, but seeing Graham here, who he is and what he’s done… Even if we did kill every last White Leg, we’d just be doing his work. We’d just be doing what the Legion taught us. Even if we thought it was for the right reasons.” 

“Is it actually solving the problem here? Every town in the region would thank us. This is just…” He tucked his head down against his chest again. “Running. A coward’s way out.”

He slipped a hand under Marius’ chin, raising his face to look at him. “You were right, from the very start. If we want to leave the Legion behind, _really_ become new people, you’re the one who’s going to have to lead.”

Looking up at him, Marius smiled humorlessly. “No pressure.”

Dixie leaned in closer, pressing his lips to his. “I think after the lives we’ve led, it’s going to take a lot of courage to find the peaceful way through,” he murmured, lips still on his. “You’re the only man I would trust to do that.”

Marius looked at him a long moment in the dark, his eyes bright in the starlight. There was stubble over his chin, his hair half-grown out, and he reached up to feel. Dixie’s eyes closed as he caressed him, tracing the delicate lines of his throat, the scars on his cheek and the arch of his brow. “Don’t sell yourself short. I trust _you_ to keep me honest about it, alright? And keep me from jumping for Graham’s throat again.”

Dixie grabbed his hand, kissing his fingertips—and with a grin, looped his little finger around Marius’. "You do what it takes to keep yourself and us together, and I'll do what it takes to keep us safe. Deal?"

He peered at it, joggling their hands together. “What’s this?”

“Pinky swear,” Dixie said, almost proudly. “You can’t break a pinky swear. There’s _rules_ about it.”

Marius laughed, almost despite himself. Dixie pulled him closer by the hand, into a kiss; again, into another. The tension let go into something light and heady, and Marius kissed him back, deeper and slower still, the blanket slipping off of them as he pressed Dixie back into the crook of the roof. They gazed at each other when he came up for air, and it was Dixie who suggested, a little faintly, “Should we go back inside?”

They didn’t rush the climb, grinning and finding reasons to let their hands wander as they made their way down. Once they were inside, Marius pulled him close again, hands at his waist. They started slow, but each kiss had a hunger in it, and they stagged towards the cushions making up their bed, not willing to let the other go. Marius slipped his hands under Dixie’s shirt, and hesitated. He’d been the forceful one, last time. “May I?”

Dixie grinned and pulled it off himself, reaching to do the same for him. A few more minutes found them on the cushions, touching each other like they’d never seen one another’s bodies. But Marius held back, prefacing each caress with a murmured, “May I touch you here?” and waiting for acknowledgment, following each stroke with a soft, hungry, “May I kiss you here?”

Dixie had leaned back on the pillows, combing through Marius’ hair as he worked his way up the soft skin inside his arm, steadily whispering for permission to go on. Marius nuzzled at Dixie’s throat, and he tipped his head back with a sigh even as he wound his fingers into his hair.

Marius was running his hands over his chest and shoulders before Dixie said, almost embarrassed, “You don’t have to keep asking.” Marius looked up under his brow, lips just brushing the skin of his midsection. Dixie looked down at him, a little stiff, and shrugged. “I’m not going to get shy about it again. I want this,” he said, still toying with Marius’ hair, but was still slow to meet his eyes. “But so do you. You don’t have to…”

“Find out what you like? Spoil you?” So lightly that Dixie shivered, Marius trailed his fingers down his side. “May I touch you here?”

His eyes were almost closed as he breathed, ”Yes.”

Marius drew it out for as long as he knew how, lingering over the places that made him gasp and quiver, Dixie melting under his touch until a final, breathless, “May I kiss you here?” was met with an urgent _Please_.

They found their way under the blanket after, slow and lazy. Marius held him to his chest as Dixie looked back to murmur, “What about you?”

He lifted his head enough to kiss him, slow and long. “You feel good?”

Dixie mumbled something almost incomprehensible, already half asleep, but the his tone and stupid grin were enough.

“That’s all I need, tonight,” he said, with another kiss. “We won’t rush this,” he added, burying his face against the back of his neck. Dixie sighed, lacing his fingers through his, holding his hand over his heart.


	6. Chapter 6

The morning was cool and overcast as they headed for the Narrows. Even the wind was still, usually humming through the canyon; all Zion held its breath.

Damianus only shared a sober nod with the lookout to the Narrows as they passed. The sound of voices ahead was louder than it had been before, yet somehow hushed as dozens of Sorrows worked toward the coming escape. They came into view as they rounded the bend, lining up packs and pottery in woven nets, passing supplies from hand to hand. Some of the youngest ran back and forth from a workstation had been set up on one bank, three or four of the tribe’s eldest grinding and dosing out bundles of broc flower and xander root.

“You two! There you are.” Daniel sloshed through the water towards them. Dark circles had formed under his eyes, and he paused to smooth back the hair poking out from under the band of his hat. “Where were you last night? We could have gotten underway already.”

Damianus heard Marius take a breath, and laid a hand on his arm. “There were a few other things we had to take care of. And it looks like there are still preparations to be made here.”

He took a very similar breath to Marius, but one of the Sorrows broke away from the rest to say, “Leave them, Daniel. We could never have left that soon.” Waking Cloud passed her bundles of healing powder to the woman beside her, coming to stand with them. The Canaanite seemed distinctly uncomfortable, not looking at her as she stood beside the two of them. “It is tonight we are leaving, at dusk. We know Zion better than the White Legs, and the dark will hide us and hinder them.”

The air between her and Daniel was frigid. “Well, I would have liked more time to talk with you about our plans,” Daniel said, defensive. “And Joshua would have had you picking off White Leg scouts already. We’ve seen a few parties getting close to the Narrows, but haven’t been able to stop them all.”

“He’s already here,” Marius said, and Damianus could hear the twist in his mouth.

Daniel pointed to a ledge above, exasperated. “Yes. Because there’s no time left to wait.”

“We know,” Marius started, with exaggerated patience. “That’s why—”

“Why we’re going to help you get the Sorrows out safely,” Damianus said. “There’s nothing to argue over. We all have the same goal, here.”

“Right. Right, of course.” Daniel wiped a hand own his face. “The Sorrows deserve—”

“The Sorrows deserve to speak for themselves. We thank you for making this escape possible, Daniel,” and there was something cutting in Waking Cloud’s inflection, “but I thank you to not tell us what we need, at this time.”

“Of c—yes.” Daniel adjusted his hat, stepping back. “I’ll go speak with Joshua. Find him when you’re ready.”

“Wait, sorry?” Damianus said, as Marius almost reached to stop him. “We’re helping the Sorrows escape, not…”

“Yes,” Daniel said, uneasy. “And you’re some of our most capable fighters. You’ll be clearing a path alongside Joshua and his disciples on the way to the tunnel.” He must have seen the argument forming up behind their eyes, because he raised hand. “Look, I get it, I do. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through because of him. But I am begging you to set it aside for one night so we can help these people to safety. I know _I_ could never live with myself if I lost _one_ innocent life to my own grudges.”

“We’ll do it,” Marius said curtly. “Just go away.”

He looked affronted, but turned to go without further comment. They watched him leave, a grim expression on Waking Cloud’s face. With forced brightness, Marius said, “So, everything…okay?”

Her smile was the same tired, distracted one they had seen the day before. “I told him what you had found in the Father’s caves, that he was different from what the Canaanite scriptures preach. He did not think highly of continuing to worship the Father in the Caves, especially as we depart Zion. Our discussion was… Heated. My tribe witnessed it, and there will be reckoning when we are safe in the Grand Staircase.” Her expression was hard, and her lips pressed tighter as she added, “Daniel has kept enough truths from us. I understand why, some; he remains under great pressure. But others we will no longer tolerate.”

Beside him, Marius plucked awkwardly at some loose threads on the hem of his jacket. “I’m sorry, if we made things more difficult.”

A little warmth came back to her eyes, looking more like when they had first met. “It was not you who brought us trials, na’ne. I can only thank you for showing the Canaanites’ deceptions.” Her smile faded again. “I visited some of the Father’s caves, but only to make them safe from the White Legs. Perhaps we will come back to Zion, and find what is inside.”

"Speaking of that." Marius glanced at Damianus, frowning guiltily at him, and pulled the strap of his rifle over his head. He held it up for Waking Cloud to see. "I need to talk to you or... or someone, about this."

"Your gun?" Waking Cloud gave it a puzzled look, reaching to touch it.

"It's not mine. It's R—it's the Father's."

Waking Cloud's hand jerked back as if it had burned her. She stared at him. "Explain," she said sharply, looking between the both of them. "You took this from the caves?"

"No," Damianus interjected. "It wasn't in a cave, it was up on—on a hill."

"Then how do you say it belongs to the Father?"

"There was a note, he left it..." Damianus took a breath. _Where he died._ Was he supposed to tell them that? He didn't know enough about the Father they believed in to know if it was blasphemy to speak of him as a man who had lived once. She'd said once that the Father gave his wife and son for them, surely they believed he lived as a mortal man then—except Damianus _wasn't sure_. Or did that come from Daniel's Father?

"You must speak with White Bird. Take it to him. He will know what to do." Waking Cloud backed away a step, muttering under her breath. She looked spooked, but she turned on her heel and made towards the path to White Bird's cave, and with a glance between them, they followed.

They found White Bird sitting by a low fire, food and medicine and other items spread out on a blanket beside him to be transferred one by one, carefully organized, into clay pots. He looked up and gave them a distracted half-smile as they entered. "Nearly done," he said.

Waking Cloud bowed her head. "We need to speak with you. Show it to him," she said tersely to Marius, who took a meek step forward, both of them feeling her ire. He held out the gun, and White Bird leaned in to get a better look at it in the light. "They tell me this belonged to the Father."

White Bird blinked, and after a pause to digest that information, gestured for Marius to hand it to him. He took the rifle and laid it across his lap, inspecting it and the carvings on the stock. "Where did you find it?" he asked curiously.

Marius looked to Damianus, who shrugged. "We found it at the top of a rock formation,” Marius said, “I don't think... that he meant for it to be found."

"I would not say that," White Bird said thoughtfully. "Only what is in the old places where he dwelled is meant not to be found. All else in the valley is a gift." He looked at Waking Cloud. "Do you see? The Father in the Caves, he left gifts for our people to find in the valley. Here is another."

"It is holy, is it not?" Waking Cloud asked.

"It is," White Bird agreed, "but a gift is meant to be used. This one, though," he gestured to the rifle, "is not to be used by us. It is not our way. Perhaps it is meant to be, that you should find it," he added to Marius. "A gift for a son of the Walker who is too the son of the Sorrows. Maybe that is why it was not found until now, ne?"

Marius' mouth worked for a moment, before he said, softly, "I'm not sure I'm worthy of such a gift."

"Then you would have died by it," White Bird chuckled, as if this should be obvious. "But all are worthy of the Father's love. In this life, we are meant to do kindness to others, to love one another, and to strike with righteous fury at those who would do harm to us," he said, and Damianus perked up at the familiar words. "This gun is a kindness done to you, and the weapon you will use to strike at those who would harm the Sorrows." He held it up for Marius to take, but he hesitated, glancing to Waking Cloud.

She smiled faintly, and nodded her assent. “He is right,” she said, “the gifts of the Father are meant for his people to use. That includes you, if you will take it, Walker of Sorrows.” Her eyes lit up as if she were making a private joke, giving him a title as ill-omened as her own.

Marius blew out a breath and accepted the rifle with a quiet reverence. “I’ll put it to good use,” he said, though he didn’t sound certain.

“You will,” Damianus piped up. “I think… we all know you will.”

***

Evening drew down. Everyone in the Narrows watched the strip of sky above as it darkened, the first stars hidden behind a veil of cloud. The Sorrows began helping each other lift the bundles and pots onto their backs, possessions and supplies for the journey ahead. Sitting on a ledge above them, Damianus watched them work, their voices hushed. “Do you think they’ll be okay?”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Marius start. “If we do our job,” he said, taking his chin from his hand and turning his gaze down to the rifle, where it was getting one last anxious cleaning. His hands shook a little as he started slotting it back together. Taking a breath to say more, he let it out through his nose instead, looking away.

“Marius?” He just shrugged, and Damianus reached out, rubbing a hand on his leg. “You’re scared.”

“Yes, of course I—” He bit down on it, laying his hand over his. More calmly, he started again. “Yes, I’m scared. If I choke out there, and you pay the price…”

“You won’t, handsome,” Damianus said, resting his head on his shoulder. “And if you do, I’ll be there, alright? I said I’d keep _both_ of us safe, and I’m not breaking that promise.”

Marius couldn’t quite bring himself to smile, but rested his cheek on Damianus’ head, lips brushing his forehead. There was a call above them, in a voice that made Damianus clench his teeth. He felt Marius shift to move, either nervousness at how close they sat, or that same instinct beaten into Damianus to obey an order. Instead, Damianus pressed a hand down on his leg again, and they stayed a moment longer, a minor defiance that made the decision to stand their own.

Graham was leading his Dead Horse warriors to the valley floor. Each carried not only a war club, but a .45 pistol at their sides. One raised her chin at the two of them as they waded closer, and said quietly, “Respect to him, now. We fight better together, owslander.”

“Thunder and fire, right,” Marius muttered, but found the sense to stop there.

“We have our route out, through the center of Zion,” Graham said, looking over them. “Though I would rather take the fight to Three Marys and end this once and for all.”

His eyes stopped on the two of them. Damianus stared right back. “The Sorrows are leaving through Pine Creek Tunnel, correct?”

There was no way to tell if his expression changed, between the bandages and growing dark. “We will be moving ahead of the tribe. The White Legs will have scouted far enough to know our most likely path, and will have mounted defenses. We will have groups of scouts—” at this, a handful of the Dead Horses stepped forward, “—to watch our back, and keep the White Legs from closing behind us. Be alert to assist them, if they find the cunning to try and flank us, but we expect most of them to be on the road. It’s up to us to either wipe them out or send them running like the dogs they are.

“Salt-Upon-Wounds still leads them. If he is brave, or stupid enough, to show his face here… Leave him to me.”

They and the Dead Horse warriors didn’t bother with stealth as they headed south from the Narrows—They were a war band now, bringing the fight to their enemies and forging a path for the ones who followed behind. Beside him, Marius was grim and tense, and Damianus…wasn’t. It felt right. It felt familiar. I felt like something he had been born to do.

There was no time to stop and reflect, as gunfire started ahead of them, but the thought flashed through his mind: _Which of us is more broken?_

White Legs were silhouetted against the sky above as they dropped down on the fighters. One of the Dead Horses cried out, and Damianus rushed ahead, taking one hard, vicious swing as the White Leg tried to get his balance. More gunfire was opening up around them, and on the path ahead, he could make out a mass of tribals bristling with weapons, ready to block the narrow pass.

“Forward!” Graham barked, and Damianus had no choice but to charge beside the others, into the fray. In the torchlight carried by both sides, he made eye contact with a warrior with a crude machete in either hand. The man smiled, the red face paint cracking around his mouth as he pointed to Damianus and shouted a challenge. He charged to meet it, dimly aware of the enemy line already flinching from gunfire, and Marius covering the ridge beside them, a body toppling, something dropping from its hand as it hit the path.

“Grenade!” Marius shouted, lunging. Damianus stepped back, blocking his opponent’s blade as he followed, and turned his head fractionally as the returned grenade sailed over his shoulder. Damianus dropped beside Marius, and it detonated a scant second later. He patted Marius’ back as he rose, lunging again for the White Legs that had survived the explosion.

A few bloody seconds saw the last of them cut down, and down the line, he saw Graham swinging at one stupid enough to close with him. With a wordless snarl, the butt of his pistol crunched once against their skull, and he was stepping over the body before it had fallen still. Blood had sprayed over the bandages on his face, and in the firelight, there was something savage in his eyes. “Move up! Watch our flanks, their light-bringers will keep trying to break our formation.”

Damianus only had time to glance back at Marius, who was reloading a magazine, his rifle slung at his chest. He looked pale, but gave Damianus a terse nod as the group started moving again. “Give me a boost, I can cover you better from a vantage.”

Wordlessly, he put his back to the stone and cupped his hands together. Marius stepped into them, and with a heave, scrambled up the ridge running beside the path. Damianus kept him in the corner of his eye, knowing he was vulnerable up there, even if it did benefit him.

There were war cries ahead, and he had to face forward. Better he stayed up there, out of the thick of it. The death, the killing, it was second nature to Damianus. What was wrong with him, that he didn’t care?

There wasn't time to dwell on it. All he could do was use the fact to their benefit, to keep Marius safe. To keep his promise.

Their path cut down the center of Zion, and Damianus could see the Aerie looming up in the dark. There was gunfire from the rocks above him, and he had to set aside the sudden cold that settled on him—another mass of fighters was blocking the way, and he shielded his eyes against a fire bomb before following the Dead Horses’ charge.

He slipped in between two of the warriors, and almost as quickly, had to press back behind a boulder with them as the White Legs’ storm drums sounded, the roar of the heavy submachine guns deafening. Chips of stone rained down over them, and Damianus searched desperately for a route ahead—but after a moment, there were answering shots from above, slower but sharper. The White Legs shifted their fire, and Damianus vaulted the boulder, flinging a knife with deadly accuracy at the warrior sighting on him, and closing the gap at a run. Covering fire started behind him, and he shut out everything that wasn’t the next storm-drummer ahead of him, his eyes up on the ledge a second too long as Damianus brought his machete to bear.

War cries followed him, the Dead Horses hitting the line. It was a mad scramble in the dark, the irregular, waving torches drowned out by muzzle flashes as blood ran, bodies falling. Damianus stepped over them, not checking if they were friend or foe as the back line of White Legs lost their nerve. He pursued as they ran, the pass opening into a wider junction and giving them room to scatter. There was no quarter, and it wasn’t until Damianus was standing over the last body that he realized Graham was looking at him, from where he stood in the center of the clearing.

All Damianus could do was stare back, feeling too—feeling—

He knew he should be feeling _something_ , after cutting down opponents running for their lives.

The Dead Horses had taken the pause to tend one another’s wounds, the uninjured ones searching corpses for ammunition. Graham gave Damianus a nod of approval, before turning to one of the men.

He was only dimly aware of Marius dropping down behind him, the shaking hand on his arm. “Dixie, are you hurt? You’re covered in—” He had to pause and take a deep breath. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine. None of it’s mine,” he said, gripping his hand hard. His own was slick with blood, but Marius didn’t let go, even as Damianus tried to pull away. He looked him up and down for injury; there was blood spattered up his left sleeve and across his front. “Are you alright?”

“I’m not—” He reached up with his other hand, pulling Damianus’ forehead to his. “I’m not thinking about it. I’m just—I’m not thinking about it. I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”

He could feel him trembling, but there was no time for comfort. Graham was calling the advance, and Damianus’ feet were moving before he even registered. He stopped dead, Marius nearly running into his back.

It was so easy, despite everything he had said, to just follow whatever orders Graham barked at him.

There was a hand on his back. “What’s wrong?”

And Marius was here to see all of it.

“We have to keep moving. We’re almost to the tunnel,” was all he said.

The bridge they had cleared of traps was ahead. A handful of the flanking Dead Horses scouts took up position on the edges, waving the rest past. Glancing south, Damianus could make out the light of a few shrouded lanterns on the path they had taken, moving slowly—the rest of the Sorrows, catching them up.

The valley grew eerily quiet again as they forged on, and Damianus found himself looking at the walls around them. He skidded to a halt at the same moment Graham shouted, the war band opening fire on the White Legs above them. Explosives rattled down after them, some igniting against the high walls, but enough making it to the ground to force their group back, trying to find cover in the exposed ravine.

Someone pressed Damianus down against the stone, and he covered his ears against the report of Marius’ rifle. He shifted as the sound of feet on the pavement ahead moved to meet them, one last explosive sending up a flash that shone red through Damianus’ closed eyelids. “They’re coming,” Marius said, almost like he couldn’t get the breath for more.

Damianus left him in cover, rolling to his feet and following the line of Graham’s disciples, already closing with the last group of White Legs. A concrete arch was set in the valley wall ahead—the tunnel, their goal. There was a flash of white ahead of it, Graham nearly at the tunnel mouth, shouting something wrathful that echoed against the stone.

The tribals here were more heavily armored, and after a moment of thinning their ranks, the Dead Horses ganged up on them two and three at a time—not to kill, but to disarm and subdue, overwhelming the White Legs’ leaders and forcing them to their knees.

“You took advantage of us at New Canaan to drive us out, and like the dogs of Caesar you are, you followed us to Zion.” The White Leg at the end of the line didn’t even have time to realize what was happening before Graham fired once, point blank. “And now you stand on holy ground, a temple to God's glory on Earth.”

Damianus shoved past the Dead Horses watching his back, as he fired again. The other White Legs were begging now, in some tongue he didn’t know, trying to struggle away from their captors.

“But the only use for an animal in our temple is sacrifice!” There was only one left, in a helmet adorned with an animal’s jawbone lashed together with feathers and spent shells, a power fist on one hand as Graham’s disciples held him in a mockery of a crucifix. “Kale watcha nei conserva oh! You understand me, don't you?” Graham snarled, slamming a fresh clip into his pistol. “Don't you?!”

Damianus could barely make out Salt-Upon-Wounds’ eyes under the death’s-head visor of his helmet, desperately searching the people around him for sympathy. With a gasp, he fought to point to Damianus. “Outman! Kuna-man is crazy! He’ll kill every White Leg! Talk! Stop him!”

“Don't listen to this... thing!” Graham said, his gun pointed down but all too close to the White Leg chief. “His cries are those of a mad beast caught in a thicket! He gave no mercy to my family, and I will give none to his.”

“Is that what you think of the people your Legion has manipulated? That we're animals?” Without thinking, Damianus stepped closer, the Dead Horses making room. “Or is that just what you think of tribals?”

“It is what I think of a beast who would bring genocide—”

Damianus couldn’t quite laugh in the Burned Man’s face, with his blood pounding his his ears, but he couldn’t stop a harsh snort from finding its way out. Graham went silent, wrath in his eyes as he turned to him, but Damianus cut him off, “Men who raze entire civilizations?”

“You speak of things you don’t understand,” the Legate growled. “He is a _butcher—_ ”

“Oh, I understand. Under your command I marched to war as a boy and killed tribes like the Sorrows and the Dead Horses. I know what the Malpais Legate looked like, and I see him in front of me now. He hasn't changed one bit.”

“I am the right hand of His vengeance. You will not—”

“All you have now, Malpais Legate, is another man you’re willing to kill for. It doesn’t matter if it’s Caesar or your Father—all you need is someone to justify this to, isn’t it? _You_ made the White Legs what they are, and _none_ of us would be here if not for you!”

“Then it falls on me to end it!”

Beside them, the Dead Horses had paused to watch—and jumped at the sound of more White Leg war cries from the ridge above. Salt-Upon-Wounds took advantage of their distraction, and with a heave, he shoved one of the men holding him aside, but couldn’t fully rise. Neither Damianus or Graham moved. “It's too late for that. You should have ended it thirty years ago. Killing him doesn't undo everything you've done, or everything he's done. It just makes you feel better, doesn't it?”

“He has a debt to pay,” The Legate said coldly, rounding on him.

The Dead Horses were breaking up to take aim at the tribals above, some tossing down ropes and descending with reckless speed. Salt-Upon-Wounds shouted something to them, still struggling with the men holding him—but he hadn’t come to lead the White Legs by being weak, lashing out with his power fist even as Graham shouted. “Die where you stand!”

“Not by you!” Damianus snarled, pushing himself for one last rush. Off-balance, the White Leg leader barely deflected the first blow on his gauntlet, reaching to grapple with the other hand. Without thinking, Damianus grabbed it, using his momentum to lock the joint, forcing him back as he stepped forward, machete angled up. It didn’t have the same wicked, piercing point as Marius’, but sank in under his ribs nearly to the hilt, and withdrew with a gout of blood.

Damianus let him drop, flicking blood off the blade. Salt-Upon-Wounds only stirred a moment longer, gasping, his helmet dislodged to lay on the pavement—and looking very like Damianus’ own decanus helm, something from a lifetime ago but still so keenly _his_ that he stared at it a moment, a bit of sickness rising in his gut. But he swallowed it down and turned to the Burned Man, who was staring at him livid.

Coming around the bend from the bridge into the valley was a group with only a handful of torches and shielded lanterns. Behind Damianus, a groan went up from the living White Legs, followed by a renewed cry from the Dead Horses as they drove them off. “It’s done,” Damianus said, not sure if Graham could hear him over the shouting. “One last kill in _your_ name, _Legate_.”

His eyes fell on a figure leaning on the canyon wall, slowly sinking to the ground, machete laying at his feet. “I can’t stop it,” Marius sobbed, and he held his breath a moment, only for him to gasp again, fast and panicked, “I can’t stop it—”

Damianus shoved past to him, trying to take his hands from where they clutched his chest like it hurt. Sitting on the ground, Marius tried to pull away, his face a mess of tears and blood, teeth bared in an anguished grimace. “I can’t stop,” he choked again, again, “I can’t stop, I can’t—”

“Hey, hey, I’m here, it’s okay,” Damianus said, trying to keep his voice calm, even as his heart tried to beat out of his ribs. “Breathe with me. Marius? Just breathe with me,” he said, managing to press his hand against his own chest. “In—”

Marius tried, but it stopped short, holding it, and Damianus felt the tension in him as he tried again with a convulsive, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

The first of the Sorrows were overtaking them, and Damianus couldn’t help but look back. The tribe was flowing around a motionless figure in an old-world vest, watching them. Damianus couldn’t read his expression behind the bandages, but knew his own was clear enough, and that words would never be able to so clearly convey his rage.

Without any sign of acknowledgment, Graham turned away, allowing himself to be swept along by the crowd.

“It’s done? The path is clear?” Damianus didn’t look up at Daniel, who didn’t wait for an answer, pressing a folded map and a detonator at his chest. “God protect you for all of your days. Give us two minutes to clear the tunnel, any sooner and all of us might not—”

He turned as someone shouted his name, and barely nodded to Damianus as he ran after them. The last of the Sorrows ran past with hardly a second glance, and the Dead Horse warriors at the back of the group gave quick shouts of recognition and thanks as they passed. He barely heard, turning back to Marius, who was beyond words now, clutching his head and breathing in desperate, tight gasps.

“We have to move,” Damianus said, awkwardly sheathing his still-bloody machete. “Marius? We have to move. I’m going to help you, okay? You just need to hang on to me.” He was so much dead weight as Damianus pulled him up, holding an arm across his shoulders. Damianus rammed the map into his pocket as he stood, detonator in his free hand. “We’re going to walk a little ways, to somewhere safer. Okay?”

He couldn’t tell if Marius heard or not, but managed to take his own weight as Damianus started moving. Zion had grown silent in the wake of the Sorrows, but it was broken with a sharp call from the bridge. A response came from the ridge above, and Damianus whispered to Marius to cover his ears. He took a second to comply, the motion uncoordinated, and Damianus pulled the trigger on the detonator.

The first _crack_ of the explosives made him wish he had done the same, and Damianus almost couldn’t hear the rocks falling behind them as he pushed Marius back down, huddling against the stones as the last of the White Legs milled on the road, torn between fleeing and following the sound. Damianus just tried to muffle Marius’ breathing as they stood again, hoping the dark would be enough to keep them safe.

***

Marius was dimly aware of Dixie drawing him along—somewhere outside of him, somewhere he could barely see or hear, where his perceptions ran what felt like years ahead of his understanding. It had to get through everything else, first.

_You couldn’t stop it, you coward, you broke instead._

There was stone underfoot instead of pavement, he realized as he fell. It took a moment from the pain in his knees to register, but Dixie was already hauling him up.

_You’re going to die here, you’re going to die—_

Dixie pulled his arm more closely across his shoulders, and Marius almost pushed him away; he needed to leave him behind and get to safety—

_You’re going to get him killed, coward, idiot, it’s your fault, it always is—_

There was still a band around his chest even if he could breathe now, but it hurt, it _hurt._

_—could have stopped this if you were stronger but you’re broken—_

He was saying something to him, lost behind the howl of his own self-loathing.

_—deserve to live with this and be alone—_

Darkness surrounded him, more than the night. He was distantly aware of something metallic rattling away from his boot.

_—deserve to die, not drag him down—_

He stared dumbly at Dixie, who had pulled away, touching him gently and taking his pack. Marius kept a death grip on the rifle as he tried to take it, clutching it tighter even as he wanted to let go. It wasn’t until the words, “We’re safe, we’re in one of the survivalist’s caves, no one saw us,” sank in that Marius pried his hands free. Dixie reached up to press his shoulders gently and Marius let his legs fold, sitting hard on a wooden platform. It was only as he walked away that he realized he _could_ see Dixie, lit with a dim blue glow. Bits of other information sank in as he sat, soft clicks and clanks the way they had come. The cold of the cave and the itch of blood drying on his skin—

Nausea hit him in a wave, and he doubled over, trying not to retch. _He was going to die he was going to die he was going to—_

Dixie was back, and Marius tried not to flinch, something screaming inside of him to toughen up and stop humiliating himself, that Dixie would never look at him the same way again, a wish to just drop dead and the crushing weight in his chest would be gone—

His hands were pressed to something warm and firm. “Breathe with me. Marius? I’m here, okay? Just breathe.” He felt Dixie’s chest expand as he inhaled, and tried to match it, but his throat closed off and it turned into a sob.

_—he shouldn’t have to be doing this, you’re hopeless—_

He tried to swallow and get a fucking grip on himself, to focus, but all he could see were his own hands, covered in blood. At some point, Dixie gave up and stood, saying, “I’ll be right back.”

Marius couldn’t stop him, knew if he tried to speak it would just be broken bawling. He kept trying to breathe, and there was a slosh of water as Dixie sat beside him again. “I’m going to clean you up, okay?”

He was too clumsy and disoriented to undress himself, hands shaking to the point of uselessness, and sat there ashamed as Dixie helped, tears running as much at his own frustration as…as from whatever was happening to him. He gasped a little at the cold of the water as Dixie ran a rag own his back, murmuring an apology in between a constant patter of, _You’re doing so good, you held together as long as you could, just let it out…_

He tried to hold it in anyway—he was a grown man who shouldn’t—shouldn’t be—

“You fought enough today already,” Dixie murmured as he tried to uncurl one of his hands. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You were so brave, Marius.”

 _I’m not. I’m a coward. Dixie is…_ Wrong? He’d never… Marius trusted him to—

To help him. To be kinder to him than he deserved. To save him.

_No one to save you, no one back then—_

There was no stopping it after that, and he leaned into Dixie as he held him. He just kept murmuring as he passed the rag over his skin, following the cold of it with the warmth of his hands. He tried to focus on the feeling, something like wonder rising up out of his exhaustion that this was happening. That there was someone he trusted enough to do this.

As Dixie was working through his hair, gently wetting it down and running his fingers through it, there was a sudden calm; a sense that if he’d had the energy, he would have broken down weeping again at how much he loved him.

Dixie sat next to him when he was finished, rubbing his back, fingers tracing gently over his scars. With one last, deep breath out, Marius looked up at him, taking in the worry on his face—and the blood all over his clothes, most of it stiff and dry. Reflexively, he reached out to touch him and feel for an injury, but Dixie caught his wrist. “I’m okay. I’m okay,” he murmured, kissing his fingers. “We’re both okay. Just like I promised.”

He all but collapsed when Dixie led him over to the bedroll he’d laid out, letting him tuck him in tight. Marius thought he might leave to clean himself up, but instead, he laid down behind him, his weight pulling the bedroll into a snug little cocoon. He barely wormed a hand free of it to catch Dixie’s, folding his fingers through his and tucking it against his chest. He felt Dixie’s lips on the back of his neck, the warmth of him seeping through the blankets, and bringing with it, at last, sleep.


	7. Epilogue

It was days later that they sat out on the ledge, watching the storm roll past. It was like a second dawn, the bruise-colored clouds drifting east, the afternoon sun slowly breaking through the gray sky. Damianus took a deep breath, enjoying the cool damp smell of the stones around them. He shifted, leaning back on his hands, and felt Marius put a hand over his. Smiling a little to himself, his eyes wandered over the canyon, watching a trio of bighorners pick their way across the far wall.

The sky faded to white, the clouds breaking up and blue breaking through. He tipped his head to rest it on Marius’ shoulder, and for a moment, was content to simply _be_.

Marius leaned his head against his, and they sat like that until the sky was almost fully clear, the winter sun still hitting the rain-wet ground hard enough to bake it dry. Before Damianus could suggest they get into the shade, Marius turned his head fractionally, pressing his lips against the top of his head. “Do you want to stay here?”

“And roast? I was thinking…” He pulled away, looking at him. “Wait. _Here_ here? Zion?”

“Like we talked about.” Marius shrugged a little, scooting closer and putting his arm over his shoulders. “If you wanted. The White Legs will give up and go back to their territory eventually. And it’s…”

“Yeah.” Damianus leaned against him, looking out over the valley. It was beautiful, still, despite everything that had happened here—something bigger and older than human conflict. It didn’t care who had set foot in the valley or passed through its river, whether they had been good or evil. There was comfort in it, somehow. Any blood shed here would wash away, in time.

But…

He looked over at Marius, at the sober expression on his face. “What are you thinking?”

Marius took a breath to speak, but paused, glancing up at the sun. Moving to stand, he gestured back at the shade closer to the valley wall, and took a seat atop a boulder. Without another convenient spot nearby, Damianus sat on his lap, driving a little “oof” of air out of him as he settled. Arms around him, Marius’ grin faded as he looked up at him. “I’ve been thinking about the Mojave. About… about everything we’ve left behind there.” He paused, as though waiting for Damianus to cut in, but he just kept watching him, toying idly with Marius’ hair. He blew out a breath before going on. “We didn’t solve anything, killing Caesar. Lanius is still on his way to the Dam. A lot of people are going to die.”

Damianus stilled as he thought, twisting his ponytail into a one-handed braid. “You want to go back.”

Marius paled a little, and Damianus saw his eyes widen ever so slightly—but he nodded, looking out at the valley instead of at him. “I don’t want to make you do this,” he said, putting his arm tighter around him, resting his head on his shoulder.. “Not if you don’t want to. We know we can go west and disappear, and try to forget everything that’s happened. But…that only lasts until the Legion catches up with us.”

He ran his hand up the back of his neck and head, cradling him against him. Marius sounded terrified, under that veneer of calm, holding him with a force that was almost painful. Damianus rested his chin on his head, thinking. “What would we do? We can’t fight the entire Legion alone.”

Marius took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “We would have to go to the NCR.”

“They’ll kill us,” Damianus said, holding him tighter. “Marius, we can’t do that. The second they see us…”

“It’s a risk. I know. But it’s the only way I can think to make a difference.” He was rubbing a hand against Damianus’ back now, idle, nervous fidgeting. “If we surrender peacefully, we stand a better chance of surviving—maybe as prisoners. Maybe as assets. But we’ve done too much to help the Legion win. I don’t know that I can go live a happy life somewhere, knowing the damage we’ve done.”

Damianus kept his head on his, frowning. He didn’t want to go back. He wanted… It was a stupid, selfish want, to just go be boring, nameless people somewhere. To have time to take up skills that weren’t for war. To try and learn to be happy. To learn what it meant to be a real person. To wake up next to Marius for the rest of his life…

_But…_

Marius had leaned back to watch him as he waited for an answer, and Damianus lifted his chin with a finger just to look at him, before leaning down to place a slow kiss on his lips.

But that life would mean nothing, to know Marius regretted it. And it meant _everything,_ how brave he was to face this, to want to set things right; a courage that Damianus had always loved him for.

He tried to put as much of that feeling into the kiss, knowing he’d never find the words to say it aloud. When he finally pulled away, Damianus rested his forehead on Marius’, eyes closed. “Okay.” He said at last.

“Okay?”

Damianus nodded against him, lifting his head just far enough to look him in the eye. “You lead, and I’ll follow.”


End file.
